Why does this vibrant fish bear President Obama’s name?

Tosanoides obama, discovered in Hawaii's Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, joins a small club of creatures named after the president.

|
Brian Skerry/National Geographic
Dr. Sylvia Earle gives President Obama a photograph of Tosanoides obama on Midway Atoll. The photograph is from the film 'Sea of Hope: America's Underwater Treasures,' premiering on National Geographic Channel on Jan. 15, 2017.

You might guess that this fish – which is covered in vibrant streaks of pink, yellow, and blue – would be named after David Bowie or Katy Perry. Instead, researchers named it after President Obama.

The reef-dwelling fish was discovered during an expedition in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a reserve located in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that President Obama dramatically expanded earlier this year as he capped off his conservationist legacy. In a study published Wednesday in the journal ZooKeys, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and the Association for Marine Exploration named the fish Tosanoides obama.

“We decided to name this fish after President Obama to recognize his efforts to protect and preserve the natural environment, including the expansion of Papahānaumokuākea,” the study's lead author, Richard Pyle, a scientist at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, said in a statement. “This expansion adds a layer of protection to one of the last great wilderness areas on Earth.”

Further analysis showed that T. obama was a type of basslet, a group which includes the chromatic fishes often sold in the aquarium trade. The 2.4-inch fish is found among diverse but rarely-studied coral reefs, living at depths of about 300 feet.

“The new fish is special because it is the only known species of coral-reef fish endemic to the monument [meaning that the species is found nowhere else on Earth],” said co-author Randall Kosaki, who is NOAA's deputy superintendent of Papahānaumokuākea, in a statement. “Our research has documented the highest rate of fish endemism in the world – 100 percent – living on the deep reefs where we found this new species.”

It’s not the first time that the president has inspired new nomenclature. Earlier this year, a retired biologist discovered a new species of parasitic flatworm that he called Baracktrema obamai. The designation was intended to be a compliment, he said, calling the creature "phenomenally, incredibly resilient."

Another parasite, discovered in 2012 near the birthplace of Mr. Obama’s father in Kenya, was dubbed Paragordius obamai. The president’s name has graced a number of other critters, too: the spider Aptostichus barackobamai, the extinct lizard species Obamadon gracilis, and the Etheostoma obama spangled darter fish, among others.

Though many fall into the creepy-and-crawly category, each namesake represents a tribute to Obama’s conservation legacy. In the waning days of his administration, the president has used his executive powers to create sprawling national monuments and vast marine reserves.

In August, he expanded the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to 582,578 square miles, nearly quadrupling its original size. The reserve is now the second-largest ecological sanctuary on the planet.

In February, Obama transformed nearly 2 million acres of California backcountry into three new national monuments. He was able to do so unilaterally – without Congressional approval – with the help of the Antiquities Act, a strategy that some have criticized as federal overreach

When he expanded the Hawaiian preserve that is home to his newest namesake, Obama said that the area contains "geological and biological resources that are part of a highly pristine deep sea and open ocean ecosystem with unique biodiversity and that constitute a sacred cultural, physical, and spiritual place for the Native Hawaiian community."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why does this vibrant fish bear President Obama’s name?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/1222/Why-does-this-vibrant-fish-bear-President-Obama-s-name
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe