''Obama'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

land planarian Geoplanidae is a family of flatworms known commonly as land planarians or land flatworms. These flatworms are mainly predators of other invertebrates, which they hunt, attack and capture using physical force and the adhesive and digestive prope ...

s from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It contains several species adapted to human-disturbed environments, including the only invasive land planarian native to the

Neotropical realm The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

, ''

Obama nungara ''Obama nungara'' is a species of land planarian in the family Geoplanidae. It is native to South America, but has been introduced in Europe. Description ''Obama nungara'' is a medium-sized land planarian with a lanceolate body, being up to ...

'', which has been accidentally introduced in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Description

The genus ''Obama'' is characterized by having a leaf-shaped body. Most species are about long, but some may reach over . The hundreds of eyes distributed along the body are of two types: monolobulated, which are simple and circular, and trilobulated, which have three lobes. The copulatory apparatus of ''Obama'' has a protrusible penis occupying the entire male atrium or most of it. Morphologically the genus can be divided in two subgroups depending on the shape of the penis papilla, which may be symmetrical or asymmetrical. The group with an asymmetrical penis papilla includes 10 species (''O. anthropophilla'', ''O. carbayoi'', ''O. carrierei'', ''O. decidualis'', ''O. josefi'', ''O. ladislavii'', ''O. marmorata'', ''O. nungara'', ''O. otavioi'' and ''O. ruiva'') and seems to form a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

clade within ''Obama''. On the other hand, the group with a symmetrical penis papilla is

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

, indicating that this is the ancestral state within the genus.

Etymology

The name ''Obama'' is formed by a composition of the

Tupi Tupi may refer to: * Tupi people of Brazil * Tupi or Tupian languages, spoken in South America ** Tupi language, an extinct Tupian language spoken by the Tupi people * Tupi oil field off the coast of Brazil * Tupi Paulista, a Brazilian municipalit ...

words ''oba'' (leaf) and ''ma'' (animal), being a reference to the body shape of species in this genus.

Species

There are 45 species assigned to the genus ''Obama'', making it the largest genus in the subfamily Geoplaninae: *'' Obama allandra'' Marques, Rossi, Valiati & Leal-Zanchet, 2018 *'' Obama anthropophila'' Amaral, Leal-Zanchet & Carbayo, 2015 *''Obama apeva'' (Froehlich, 1959) *'' Obama apiguara'' Oliveira, Almeida & Carbayo, 2020 *''Obama applanata'' (

Graff Graff may refer to: * Graff (lunar crater) * Graff (Martian crater) * Graff (jewellers), jewelry boutique specializing in rare diamonds ** 2009 Graff Diamonds robbery, which took place at the above store * Graff, Minnesota an unincorporated co ...

, 1899) *''Obama argus'' (

, 1899) *''Obama assu'' (Froehlich, 1959) *'' Obama aureolineata'' Iturralde & Leal-Zanchet, 2021 *'' Obama autumna'' Iturralde & Leal-Zanchet, 2021 *''Obama baptistae'' (Leal-Zanchet & Oliveira, 2012) *''Obama braunsi'' (

, 1899) *''Obama burmeisteri'' (Schultze & Müller, 1857) *''Obama carbayoi'' (Oliveira & Leal-Zanchet, 2012) *''Obama carinata'' (Riester, 1938) *''Obama carrierei'' (

, 1897) *''Obama catharina'' (Hyman, 1957) *''Obama decidualis'' Amaral & Leal-Zanchet, 2015 *''Obama dictyonota'' (Riester, 1938) *''Obama divae'' (Marcus, 1951) *''Obama eudoxiae'' (Ogren & Kawakatsu, 1990) *''Obama eudoximariae'' (Ogren & Kawakatsu, 1990) *''Obama evelinae'' (Marcus, 1951) *''Obama ferussaci'' (

, 1897) *'' Obama ficki'' (Amaral & Leal-Zanchet, 2012) *''Obama fryi'' (

, 1899) *''Obama glieschi'' (Froehlich, 1959) *''Obama itatiayana'' (Schirch, 1929) *'' Obama josefi'' (Carbayo & Leal-Zanchet, 2001) *'' Obama ladislavii'' (

, 1899) *'' Obama leticiae'' Iturralde & Leal-Zanchet, 2021 *''Obama livia'' (E. M. Froehlich, 1955) *'' Obama maculatentis'' Negrete, Gira & Brusa, 2019 *'' Obama maculipunctata'' Rossi, Amaral, Ribeiro, Cauduro, Fick, Valiati & Leal-Zanchet, 2015 *''Obama marmorata'' (Schultze & Müller, 1857) *''Obama metzi'' (

, 1899) *''

'' Carbayo, Álvarez-Presas, Jones & Riutort, 2016 *''Obama otavioi'' Carbayo, 2016 *''Obama poca'' (Froehlich, 1958) *''Obama polyophthalma'' (

, 1899) *''Obama riesteri'' (Froehlich, 1955) *''Obama rufiventris'' (Schultze & Müller, 1857) *''Obama ruiva'' (E. M. Froehlich, 1972) *''Obama schubarti'' (Froehlich, 1958) *'' Obama tribalis'' Marques, Rossi, Valiati & Leal-Zanchet, 2018 *''Obama trigueira'' (E. M. Froehlich, 1955)

Phylogeny

The genus ''Obama'' was erected after a study of

molecular phylogeny Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

with the subfamily Geoplaninae revealed that the genus ''

Geoplana ''Geoplana'' is a genus of land planarians found in South America. Taxonomic history The genus ''Geoplana'' was erected in 1857 by William Stimpson and included most land planarians with several eyes distributed along the body.Stimpson, W. (1 ...

'', originally containing more than a hundred species, was

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of converg ...

. One of the monophyletic clades revealed by the study was separate from ''Geoplana'' as the new genus ''Obama''. All species within the new genus share a similar morphology, including the leaf-shaped body, the presence of a permanent penis papilla, ovovitelline ducts entering the female atrium dorsally and dorsal eyes of two types: mono- and trilobulated. The sister-group of ''Obama'' seems to be the genus '' Cratera'', which has a very similar appearance but lacks trilobulated eyes. The following phylogenetic tree shows the relationship of several species of ''Obama'' after several molecular studies:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18355807 Geoplanidae Rhabditophora genera