Meet Breugnathair elgolensis: a newly discovered species of ancient reptile that inhabited what is now Scotland 167 million years ago.
An international team of paleontologists made the discovery after unearthing the remains of a specimen near Elgol on the Isle of Skye at the tail end of an expedition. In fact, according to the American Museum of Natural History, the team was on the verge of giving up on the expedition when they found it.
The researchers writing in Nature say it is one of the oldest and most complete fossils of a Jurassic lizard on record.
“I first described parviraptorids some 30 years ago based on more fragmentary material, so it's a bit like finding the top of the jigsaw box many years after you puzzled out the original picture from a handful of pieces,” co-lead author Susan Evans, Director of the UCL Centre for Integrative Anatomy, UCL Division of Biosciences, said in a statement. “The mosaic of primitive and specialised features we find in parviraptorids, as demonstrated by this new specimen, is an important reminder that evolutionary paths can be unpredictable."
Not a Snake, and Not a Lizard
What makes Breugnathair particularly interesting is that it is not quite a snake and it is not quite a lizard. It has serpentine jaws and teeth not dissimilar from a modern python. And yet, it also has well-developed limbs and the head and body proportions similar to monitor lizards like the Komodo dragon.
The creature would have been roughly the size of the American iguana and is thought to have munched on smaller lizards, early mammals, and even young dinosaurs.
Its name Breugnathair elgolensis reflects its confused heritage, translating as “false snake of Elgol.”
Read More: 131 Fossilized Footprints Reveal Clues About Scotland's Jurassic Period
A Reptilian Combination
The species’ unique combination of snake and lizard-like features has confused paleontologists. It was previously thought that the dental bones (which are more snake-like in appearance) and the remaining bones (which are more lizard-like in appearance) belonged to two separate creatures.
Now, researchers are saying it is a singular animal that belongs to a family called Parviraptoridae, itself a predatory group of squamates — an order of reptiles that includes snakes and lizards.
Today, the order includes almost 12,000 species as diverse as the boa constrictor and the common house gecko. But the history of the group extends millennia, with the most up-to-date records suggesting squamates first appeared some 190 million years ago.
It is thought Parviraptoridae would have roamed North America and Europe during the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous epoch.
An Evolutionary Curiosity
Where exactly Breugnathair fits into the evolutionary tree is a bit of a mystery. However, one theory suggests that they may be an early ancestor of snakes.
“Snakes are remarkable animals that evolved long, limbless bodies from lizard-like ancestors,” explained co-lead author Roger Benson, Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, in the statement.
“Breugnathair has snake-like features of the teeth and jaws, but in other ways is surprisingly primitive. This might be telling us that snake ancestors were very different to what we expected, or it could instead be evidence for evolution of predatory habits in a primitive, extinct group,” Benson added in the statement.
Alternatively, it could be an ancestor to both lizards and snakes — hence the Frankenstein-esque mix of features.
“This fossil gets us quite far, but it doesn’t get us all of the way,” Benson said in another statement.
“However, it makes us even more excited about the possibility of figuring out where snakes come from,” Benson concluded in the statement.
Read More: Rare Middle Jurassic Pterosaur Found Perfectly Preserved in Scotland
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
- Nature. Mosaic anatomy in an early fossil squamate
- Scottish Geology Trust. Jurassic
