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New Species of Reptile Named After Discovery of 'Extremely Rare' Fossil
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Paleontologists from Petrified Forest National Park and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History named and described a new species of "unusual, long-necked reptile" after microfossils of the animal were recovered at a site called Thunderstorm Ridge in northern Arizona.
Newsweek has reached out to the Petrified Forest National Park by email for comment.
Why It Matters
Thousands of new species are discovered each year, and many of these are classified as endangered or already extinct. For example, the new reptile found in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona lived more than 200 million years ago.
The species' description, based on tiny screen‑washed fossils and published in the peer‑reviewed journal Palaeodiversity, documented anatomy consistent with tanystropheid reptiles—a group known for extreme neck elongation in some species—and indicated that the Triassic landscape of northern Arizona was warm and wet about 220 million years ago, supporting swampy ponds and small rivers where these animals may have lived.
What To Know
Scientists named the new species Akidostropheus oligos, which translates to "tiny, spiked back bone." The reptile is so named because its neck bones are smaller than the average pinky fingernail and have a unique spike on the top.
Akidostropheus oligos is known as a tanystropheid reptile, a type of animal that can have a neck that is "twice as long as the body and tail combined," the press release said.
The fossils were discovered at the Thunderstorm Ridge site, within the Petrified Forest. The discovery was made after assessing microfossils, which were found by "collecting large amounts of rock from the site, rinsing that rock with water through fine metal screens to break it down, and then looking at the remaining sediment under a microscope to find the tiny fossils."
"The study, led by seasonal paleontologist Alaska Schubert, describes the anatomy of Akidostropheus oligos and compares it to other related Triassic animals from fossils that are relatively common from Europe and China but are extremely rare in North America," Petrified Forest National Park posted on Facebook earlier this month. "This study shows that 220 million years ago in the Triassic Period, northern Arizona was a warm, wet place. The tanystropheids that inhabited the area might have lived in swampy ponds or small rivers."
The genus Tanystropheus was also discovered at the site, the study said. Prior to the study, there has been only one confirmed occurrence of the genus Tanystropheus in North America.
An artistic rendering of a long-necked tanystrophied reptile, the group of animals to which the new discovery belongs.
An artistic rendering of a long-necked tanystrophied reptile, the group of animals to which the new discovery belongs.
Petrified Forest National Park
What People Are Saying
Paleontologist Alaska Schubert told Newsweek: "To me, the coolest thing about Akidostropheus oligos is the spike on the vertebrae: there are very few animals that have spiked bone projections; most animals (living and extinct) who exhibit spikes do so via specialized scales, skin, or hair, so it's a very unique exhibit of a defensive structure. It is also special because the clade that it belongs to, Tanystropheidae, are very rarely found in North America, so not only is this a new species, but it is a unique find on a larger ecological level that shows that the group was wider spread than previously thought."
The study in Palaeodiversity said: "The new genus and species described here, Akidostropheus oligos, is a small, non-marine tanystropheid. Due to the disarticulated nature of the microfossils from PFV 456, the taxon is at this time only known from vertebrae, which precludes an investigation into many other aspects of these interesting animals, such as locomotion, diet, or braincase reconstruction for sensory analysis."
What Happens Next?
In its conclusion, the study notes the "emerging importance of studying Triassic non-marine microvertebrate bonebeds to fill gaps in the spatiotemporal and anatomical record of Tanystropheidae, among other groups."
Schubert told Newsweek that "it's possible there are additional new species" from the assemblages at Thunderstorm Ridge "just waiting to be discovered."
