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Obama
Obama nungara
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Platyhelminthes
Order:	Tricladida
Superfamily:	Geoplanoidea
Family:	Geoplanidae
Subfamily:	Geoplaninae
Genus:	Obama Carbayo et al., 2013
Type species
Obama fryi Graff, 1899

Obama /ˈoʊbəmə/ is a genus of land planarians from South America. It contains several species adapted to human-disturbed environments, including the only invasive land planarian native to the Neotropical realm, Obama nungara, which has been accidentally introduced in Europe.

Description

The genus Obama is characterized by having a leaf-shaped body. Most species are about 10 centimetres (3.9 in) long, but some may reach over 20 centimetres (7.9 in). 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 clade within Obama. On the other hand, the group with a symmetrical penis papilla is paraphyletic, indicating that this is the ancestral state within the genus.

Etymology

The name Obama is formed by a composition of the Tupi words oba (leaf) and ma (animal), being a reference to the body shape of species in this genus. Unlike Baracktrema obamai, it is not named after Barack Obama and the similarity between the names is pure coincidence.

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, 1899)
• Obama argus (Graff, 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 (Graff, 1899)
• Obama burmeisteri (Schultze & Müller, 1857)
• Obama carbayoi (Oliveira & Leal-Zanchet, 2012)
• Obama carinata (Riester, 1938)
• Obama carrierei (Graff, 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 (Graff, 1897)
• Obama ficki (Amaral & Leal-Zanchet, 2012)
• Obama fryi (Graff, 1899)
• Obama glieschi (Froehlich, 1959)
• Obama itatiayana (Schirch, 1929)
• Obama josefi (Carbayo & Leal-Zanchet, 2001)
• Obama ladislavii (Graff, 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 (Graff, 1899)
• Obama nungara Carbayo, Álvarez-Presas, Jones & Riutort, 2016
• Obama otavioi Carbayo, 2016
• Obama poca (Froehlich, 1958)
• Obama polyophthalma (Graff, 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 with the subfamily Geoplaninae revealed that the genus Geoplana, originally containing more than a hundred species, was polyphyletic. 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

1. Boll, Piter Kehoma; Leal-Zanchet, Ana Maria (2016). "Preference for different prey allows the coexistence of several land planarians in areas of the Atlantic Forest". Zoology. 119 (3): 162–168. doi:10.1016/j.zool.2016.04.002. ISSN 0944-2006. PMID 27156235.
2. ^ Carbayo, Fernando; Álvarez-Presas, Marta; Jones, Hugh D.; Riutort, Marta (2016). "The true identity of Obama (Platyhelminthes: Geoplanidae) flatworm spreading across Europe". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 177 (1): 5–28. doi:10.1111/zoj.12358. ISSN 0024-4082.
3. ^ Carbayo, F.; Álvarez-Presas, M.; Olivares, C. U. T.; Marques, F. P. L.; Froehlich, E. X. M.; Riutort, M. (2013). "Molecular phylogeny of Geoplaninae (Platyhelminthes) challenges current classification: Proposal of taxonomic actions". Zoologica Scripta. 42 (5): 508–528. doi:10.1111/zsc.12019.
4. ^ Marques, Alessandro; Rossi, Ilana; Valiati, Victor Hugo; Leal-Zanchet, Ana Maria (2018). "Integrative approach reveals two new species of Obama (Platyhelminthes: Tricladida) from the South-Brazilian Atlantic Forest". Zootaxa. 4455 (1): 99–126. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4455.1.4. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 30314222.
5. ^ Carbayo, Fernando; Francoy, Tiago M.; Giribet, Gonzalo (2016). "Non-destructive imaging to describe a new species of Obama land planarian (Platyhelminthes, Tricladida)". Zoologica Scripta. 45 (5): 566–578. doi:10.1111/zsc.12175. ISSN 0300-3256.
6. ^ Iturralde, Giuly G.; Allgayer, Heloísa; Valiati, Victor H.; Leal-Zanchet, Ana M. (2021). "Seeing the true colours: three new species of Obama (Platyhelminthes : Continenticola) from remnants of Atlantic forest in southern Brazil based on an integrative approach". Invertebrate Systematics. 34: 312–331. doi:10.1071/IS20043.
7. Negrete, Lisandro; Gira, Rafael Díaz; Brusa, Francisco (2019). "Two new species of land planarians (Platyhelminthes, Tricladida, Geoplanidae) from protected areas in the southern extreme of the Paranaense Rainforest, Argentina". Zoologischer Anzeiger. 279: 38–51. doi:10.1016/j.jcz.2019.01.002. ISSN 0044-5231.
8. ^ Rossi, Ilana; Amaral, Silvana Vargas; Ribeiro, Giovana Gamino; Cauduro, Guilherme Pinto; Fick, Israel; Valiati, Victor Hugo; Leal-Zanchet, Ana Maria (2015). "Two new Geoplaninae species (Platyhelminthes: Continenticola) from Southern Brazil based on an integrative taxonomic approach". Journal of Natural History. 50 (13–14): 787–815. doi:10.1080/00222933.2015.1084057. ISSN 0022-2933. S2CID 86172935.

• Geoplanidae
• Rhabditophora genera