You’re welcome, Obama.

A team led by UC Riverside professor Mary Droser had Former President Barack Obama’s commitment to science in mind as they dug in an Australian desert. So when they uncovered the fossil of two never-discovered types of creature that lived 580 to 540 million years ago, they decided to name the first of the animals after Obama.

The other honors English naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

“We wanted to celebrate the advocacy of both Obama and Attenborough for science,” Droser said in by phone Wednesday, June 20.

The former president isn’t directly tied to the animals — which are among the first living creatures on Earth — but Droser pointed out one connection.

“There is a similarity between Obamus and an ear,” she said. “If you’ll remember, Barack Obama used

to make fun of his ears, so we thought that was fun.”

More precisely, Obama coronatus was less than an inch across and shaped roughly like a Christmas wreath, she said. It probably never moved, but Droser plans to do more research to confirm that — once she returns from another trip to the desert of South Australia’s Flinders Ranges region, where the team found the two new animals.

The fossils are so unlike any known species that researchers classified them as their own genus, the category scientists use for a grouping of similar species. The Genus Panthera, for example, includes lions, tigers and jaguars.

“This particular form is like nothing else we have,” Droser said. “These fossils are really enigmatic and we don’t even know how they are related to each other. There’s nothing else that looks even slightly like it.”

At least nine species were named after Obama, more than any other U.S. president, the peer-reviewed Science Magazine reported in December 2016. Droser said she thinks the number is still close to that.

“I think there’s only one other genus named after him, though,” she said.

Attenborough narrated hundreds of episodes of wildlife documentaries. At least 15 species are named after him.

The Obamus discovery was published online Thursday, June 14, in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences. A paper on Attenborites is forthcoming in the same paper, UC Riverside said.

OLD ANIMALS NOW DISCOVERED

Obamus coronatus: Wreath-shaped, less than half an inch across, with raised spiral grooves on its surface. Probably spent its life without moving on the bottom of a shallow sea.

Attenborites janeae: Grape shaped, less than half an inch across, with internal grooves and ridges giving it a raisin-like appearance.