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Fossil discovery in storeroom cupboard shifts origin of modern lizard back 35 million years


Still Waters

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A specimen retrieved from a cupboard in the Natural History Museum in London has shown that modern lizards originated in the Late Triassic and not the Middle Jurassic as previously thought.

This fossilized relative of living lizards such as monitor lizards, gila monsters and slow worms was identified in a stored museum collection from the 1950s, including specimens from a quarry near Tortworth in Gloucestershire, South West England. The technology didn't exist then to expose its contemporary features.

As a modern-type lizard, the new fossil impacts all estimates of the origin of lizards and snakes, together called the Squamata, and affects assumptions about their rates of evolution, and even the key trigger for the origin of the group.

The team, led by Dr. David Whiteside of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, have named their incredible discovery Cryptovaranoides microlanius meaning "small butcher" in tribute to its jaws that were filled with sharp-edged slicing teeth.

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-fossil-discovery-storeroom-cupboard-shifts.html

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq8274

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3 hours ago, Still Waters said:

modern lizards originated in the Late Triassic and not the Middle Jurassic as previously thought.

Does not the Late Jurassic come after the Middle Jurassic? If so then the date has not moved back, but forward.

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5 hours ago, Ell said:

Does not the Late Jurassic come after the Middle Jurassic? If so then the date has not moved back, but forward.

You are correct. As is detailed in the article, the heading title is incorrect.

The quality of modern reporting continues to decline.

Edit: Addition.

.

Edited by Swede
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12 hours ago, Ell said:

Does not the Late Jurassic come after the Middle Jurassic? If so then the date has not moved back, but forward.

 

6 hours ago, Swede said:

You are correct. As is detailed in the article, the heading title is incorrect.

The quality of modern reporting continues to decline.

You are both wrong, and the heading title is correct.

The article states Late Triassic, not Late Jurassic.

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8 hours ago, Still Waters said:

 

You are both wrong, and the heading title is correct.

The article states Late Triassic, not Late Jurassic.

My apologies. Read in haste...

.

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