Newly discovered animal that lives underground and has poor vision named after Donald Trump

A company that won the right to name a newly discovered amphibian has decided to call it Dermophis donaldtrumpi, after United States President Donald Trump. The animal belongs to the group of caecilians, which have rudimentary eyes that can detect only light and dark. Trump, too, “must see the world in black and white to think climate change is a hoax”, the company EnviroBuild said.

The sustainable building materials company said it had won an auction to name the creature for a bid of $25,000 (approximately Rs 17.59 lakh).

The company said the US president is the “perfect namesake” for the Panamanian caecilian. Justifying the name further, it said the animal lives almost entirely underground. “Burrowing its head underground helps Donald Trump when avoiding scientific consensus” on climate change, the company said.

Further, the animal “grows an extra layer of skin which their young use their teeth to peel off and eat”, while Trump, “as a method of ensuring their children survive in life, prefers granting them high roles in the Oval Office”, said EnviroBuild.

The firm’s co-founder Aidan Bell said the company will work towards creating awareness about climate change. “[Dermophis donaldtrumpi] is particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change and is therefore in danger of becoming extinct as a direct result of its namesake’s climate policies,” said Bell.

The company was referring to Trump’s repeated claim that there is no real evidence to prove climate change. The president has often ridiculed those who believe it exists. Trump had previously suggested that climate change was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to harm United States manufacturers with environmental regulations.

In June 2017, Trump had announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, where nations had agreed on measures to restrict a rise in global temperatures.