AN ANCIENT lizard dating back 205million years has been confirmed to be the “world’s oldest” in a fresh study.
The fossilised reptile, which was unearthed in a quarry near Bristol, UK, has been preserved in remarkable detail.
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It’s teeth are still in tact after all that time.
Named Cryptovaranoides microlanius, the lizard dates back to a time when reptiles dominated the land, and molluscs ruled the sea.
It was the end of the Triassic period, and the beginning of the Jurassic era, also known as the age of dinosaurs.
However, the tiny skeleton has been the source of much debate.
Scientists have gone back and forth over the identity of the specimen since the first study on the fossil was published in 2022.
Dr David Whiteside, lead author of the original study that came out in Science Advances, has addressed the criticism in a follow-up published in Royal Society Open Science.
He confirmed “that the little Bristol reptile is indeed the world’s oldest modern-type lizard.”
The lizard has not only been declared the oldest known lizard, but has pushed back the emergence of these animals by roughly 30million years.
“We were therefore surprised, perhaps even shocked, that in 2023 another team of academics suggested that Cryptovaranoides was not a lizard or even a lizard relative, but in fact an archosauromorph, more closely related to crocodilians and dinosaurs,” co-author Professor Michael Benton said in a statement.
The Bristol team returned to the original specimen, putting the tiny skeleton through another round of X-ray and CT scans.
The results revealed that the skull, jaws, teeth, and limb bones showed Cryptovaranoides to be a lizard, not an archosauropmorph.
“The result of all this had to be tested by a phylogenetic analysis,” added Whiteside.
“This is where we code hundreds of anatomical features in Cryptovaranoides and other modern and fossil lizards, as well as various archosauromorphs.
“We ran the analysis time after time, and it gave our original result, that the little Bristol reptile is indeed the world’s oldest modern-type lizard.”
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