An Amphibian Named After Donald Trump

EnviroBuild image puts Donald Trump’s hair on the amphibian. Photograph: EnviroBuild

US presidents tend to receive their fair share of honors – and Donald Trump is the latest recipient. 

A newly discovered blind and burrowing amphibian is to be officially named Dermophis donaldtrumpi, in recognition of the US president’s climate change denial. 

The name was chosen by the boss of EnviroBuild, a sustainable building materials company, who paid $25,000 (£19,800) at an auction for the right. (Note: The money raised from auctioning the naming rights went to the Rainforest Trust charity).

The 10cm-long amphibian Dermophis donaldtrumpi.

The small legless creature was found in Panama and EnviroBuild’s Aidan Bell said its ability to bury its head in the ground matched Donald Trump’s approach to global warming. 

And Bell had intended to raise awareness about climate change. 

He explained: "[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". 

The small, blind, creature is a type of caecilian that primarily lives underground, and Bell drew an unflattering comparison between its behaviour and Trump's. 

"Burrowing [his] head underground helps Donald Trump when avoiding scientific consensus on anthropomorphic climate change", he wrote. 

The world's leading scientists agree that climate change is primarily human-induced. But Trump, whose administration have pursued a pro-fossil fuels agenda, has accused those scientists of having a "political agenda" and cast doubt on whether humans were responsible for the Earth's rising temperatures.

Fortunately, for Trump, stupidity is not a crime. 

Yesterday, I was in Horizon Tower 2A, Avenue 5 in Bangsar South, KL to attend the Air Products Toastmasters meeting. 

There, I was a speech evaluator and additionally, I presented a CC #10 speech titled Bull’s Eye. 

The speech was an improvement from Tuesday – but I reckon I can still do better And guess what? 

I was voted Best Speaker and Best Evaluator.

And the coup de grace  came when Air Products staffers cheerfully sent us off with a select collection of Christmas carols: