Researchers discover fossils of new species in Arizona
Last edited Fri Oct 16, 2020, 10:35 AM - Edit history (2)
A cross between an anteater and a chameleon?
https://apnews.com/article/arizona-animals-forests-parks-national-parks-8a68960828fe07799664aa65fcb197f1
PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — Researchers have discovered fossils of a tiny burrowing reptile among a vast expanse of petrified wood in eastern Arizona.
The new species has been named Skybalonyx skapter, a part of a group known as drepanosaurs from the Triassic Period, about 220 million years ago.
Petrified Forest National Park outside Holbrook is considered one of the premier places to study plants and animals from that period, sometimes known as the dawning age of dinosaurs.
The researchers say the ancient reptiles are strange because of morphologies that include enlarged second claws, bird-like beaks and tails with claws. They likely looked like a cross between an anteater and a chameleon.
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On edit:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/16/us/reptile-fossil-220-million-years-arizona-scn-trnd/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Top+Stories%29
National Park Service interns unearthed fossils of a bizarre 220-million-year-old reptile
By Scottie Andrew, CNN
Updated 10:21 AM ET, Fri October 16, 2020
This illustration by Midiaou Diallo shows what the Skybalonyx skapter might have looked like in life. Fossils of the reptile were found in Arizona's Petrified Forest.
(CNN)A species of peculiar burrowing reptiles that evaded scientists for more than 220 million years has been found, fossilized, at last. A team of National Park Service interns are credited with its discovery.
Hidden in a once-vibrant part of Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, the burgeoning paleontologists unearthed fossils of the Skybalonyx skapter, an "anteater-like reptile" that probably predates dinosaurs, according to findings published this month in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. It's a new species of a reptile previously thought to only live in trees.
The unusual Skybalonyx skapter belongs to the group Drepanosaur, often considered the ugly duckling of reptiles (perhaps partly because they bore some resemblance to fowl in life). The University of California Museum of Paleontology describes the creature's features as "seemingly drawn at random from evolution's spare parts box," with bird-like beaks and tails punctuated with a claw, almost too oddly fantastical to be real.
But the Skybalonyx skapter was real, and it lived in an area that was once overrun with life during the Triassic Period some 220 million years ago, Xavier Jenkins, a Idaho State University PhD student who was credited with the Skybalonyx's discovery, told CNN.
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