Artist’s impression of Cryptovaranoides when it was alive
(photo credit: LAVINIA GANDOLFI)
The fossilized remains of a relative of the modern-day lizard were
found in a museum collection cupboard from a UK museum hailing back to
the 1950s. Unlike other ancient lizards recently revisited by
archaeologists, this little creature has a long family line crawling
through history behind it.
After
collecting dust in a storage space in the Natural History Museum in
London, England, a now-extinct relative of monitor lizards, Gila
monsters and slow worms was uncovered. These archived specimens were
brought back into the spotlight when researchers realized that
technological advancement today, compared to the original sample from
the 1950s, would allow them to learn more about the evolution process and imaging.
More
importantly, this discovery taught archaeologists that lizards as a
species dated back to a different time period than previously thought.
Ancestor of lizards found in closet
Lizards and their many forms dated back to the Late Triassic period and not the Middle Jurassic.
A team of archaeologists, led by Dr. David Whiteside of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, named their discovery Cryptovaranoides microlanius meaning ‘small butcher’ in tribute to its jaws that were filled with sharp-edged slicing teeth. This could be a key indicator of how the species had managed to eventually thrive throughout history.
Fossil – the whole specimen showing the skull (left) and skeleton (base
of specimen) (credit: DAVID WHITESIDE, SOPHIE CHAMBI-TROWELL, MIKE
BENTON, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM UK)
According to Whiteside, the specimen in its jar was not something that would have typically turned heads in his lab.
“I
first spotted the specimen in a cupboard full of Clevosaurus fossils in
the storerooms of the Natural History Museum in London where I am a
Scientific Associate. This was a common enough fossil reptile, a close
relative of the New Zealand Tuatara that is the only survivor of the
group, the Rhynchocephalia, that split from the squamates over 240
million years ago," he stated.
The sleepy specimen that changed everything
“Our specimen was
simply labeled ‘Clevosaurus and one other reptile.’ As we continued to
investigate the specimen, we became more and more convinced that it was
actually more closely related to modern-day lizards than the Tuatara
group. We made X-ray scans of the fossils at the University, and this
enabled us to reconstruct the fossil in three dimensions and to see all
the tiny bones that were hidden inside the rock,” Whiteside said.
This discovery was far from minor, and actually changed the scope of how modern reptiles became just that.
Whiteside
included the timing of it all in his research. He acknowledged the
changes across the planet when the modern-day relatives of this reptile
began evolving. "This was a
time of major restructuring of ecosystems on land, with origins of new
plant groups, especially modern-type conifers, as well as new kinds of
insects, and some of the first of modern groups such as turtles,
crocodilians, dinosaurs, and mammals."
Some
of Whiteside's partners added their thoughts on the importance of this
discovery for the reptilian world. “The name of the new animal...
reflects the hidden nature of the beast in a drawer
but also in its likely lifestyle, living in cracks in the limestone on
small islands that existed around Bristol at the time. The species name,
meaning ‘small butcher,’ refers to its jaws that were filled with
sharp-edged slicing teeth and it would have preyed on arthropods and
small vertebrates.”
Now, it's no wonder why this ancient creature's cousins have crept their way into the ecosystems of the modern day!
Fossil discovery in storeroom cupboard shifts origin of modern lizard back 35 million years
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