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Tuatara are the lone surviving Rhynchocephalian. (Kevin Schafer/Getty Images)
A tiny, reptilian fossil has been excavated from layers of past sandstone, wherever it was preserved for implicit 240 cardinal years – predating the dinosaurs.
The small lizard-like carnal pinches the grounds for the oldest known lepidosaur. Until now, this rubric was held by Wirtembergia, which lived 3-7 cardinal years later.
Lepidosaurs are a radical containing lizards, snakes, and the lone surviving subordinate of the bid Rhynchocephalia. The lone surviving subordinate of the bid is New Zealand's alleged 'living fossil', the tuatara, which, contempt the ravages of time, has maintained a precise akin quality to their Mesozoic ancestors.
Related: Genomic Study Reveals New Zealand's Tuatara Is Like No Other Animal connected The Planet
The caller fossil has besides been classified arsenic Rhynchocephalian, based connected adjacent investigation of its near-complete skull and skeleton.
"The caller beast has comparatively ample triangular-shaped teeth and astir apt utilized these to pierce and shear the hard cuticles of its insect prey, beauteous overmuch arsenic the tuatara does today," says vertebrate paleontologist Michael Benton from the University of Bristol.
An artist's rendering of Agriodontosaurus successful action. (Dan Marke)It's been named 'Agriodontosaurus helsbypetrae', meaning fierce-toothed lizard of the Helsby Sandstone Formation – the Middle Triassic chromatic successful which it was recovered connected a formation successful Devon, UK.
This find presents immoderate of the oldest features of lepidosaurs, immoderate of which – made imaginable utilizing synchrotron CT scans to probe the finer details of this tiny reptile — are astonishing scientists.
The fossil was incredibly well-preserved. (Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul)"The caller fossil shows astir nary of what we expected… [it's] dissimilar thing yet discovered and has made america each deliberation again astir the improvement of the lizard, snakes and the tuatara," says paleobiologist Dan Marke, besides from the University of Bristol.
Though it did person the unfastened temporal barroom (similar to a cheekbone) they predicted, Agriodontosaurus's palate lacked teeth, and its skull had nary motion of a hinge, 2 things scientists expected of the archetypal lepidosaurs. What's more, its teeth were amazingly large.
"This specimen not lone provides important accusation astir the ancestral skull of each lepidosaurs but besides builds connected the increasing cognition that the tuatara, portion often called a 'living fossil'; belongs to a once-diverse bid of past reptiles with a affluent evolutionary history," Marke says.
This probe was published successful Nature.
