The remains of an ancient reptile that had been stored away in a fossil library for nearly 80 years is offering scientists more information about how evolution works.
Virginia Tech College of Science researcher Michelle Stocker is part of a team that documented a new species of extinct reptile. It’s estimated to be 230 million years old, older than the dinosaurs.
“The specimen was actually collected in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration as part of a paleontology effort across the state of Texas and they collected thousands of fossils."
And that time delay was fortunate because while those fossils were lying undisturbed for decades, scientists invented the CT Scanning machine.
“So that is what allowed us to actually study the brain shape of the animal. In the past if you wanted to study the brain anatomy of an extinct animal--of a fossil like this—you’d literally have to saw it in half to be able to see inside of it that’s pretty destructive and not something you want to do when you only nave one of an animal.”
The CAT Scan showed the presence of 3 orbitals in the head, and its still not confirmed, but it’s possible all 3 of them could have been eyes. Hence the name the researchers chose: Triopticus Primus, which means "First of Three Eyes."
But here’s where it gets even more interesting: the small reptile was wiped out in the biggest mass extinction ever on this planet. One hundred million years later, true dinosaurs with very similar features to Triopiticus, appeared in the fossil record. Stocker says this is something scientists call body shape convergence, like for example:
“The body shapes of say a tuna and a dolphin. One is a fish and one is a mammal, but they’re both really streamlined for fast swimming. So they’re not closely related either but they’ve evolved similar shapes. They’re solving a similar problem but maybe with different equipment and through different processes.”
And you might say it's a similar situation for these teams of archeologists - the 21st century team that confirmed the species and the 20thcentury crew that excavated the fossil.
“They couldn’t have ever expected that we could know these things about the fossils, but they took such good care getting them out of the ground that we can do a lot with them now.”
The findings of this multi-university project are published in the September issue of the journal, Current Biology.