Jaw bone on British beach belonged to huge ancient reptile

April 9, 2018

A 205-million-year-old jaw bone belonging to an ancient porpoise-like reptile known as an ichthyosaur was likely one of the largest ever known on Earth, researchers in Britain said Monday.

The bone fragments of the long-extinct fish predator were spotted on the beach at Lilstock, Somerset in May 2016, and together they measure about three feet long (96 centimeters), said the report in the journal PLOS One.

After comparing them to another set of bones in Canada scientists believe they came from an ichthyosaur that was close to 26 meters long, almost the size of a blue whale.

The bones in Canada belonged to what used to be the largest ichthyosaur known, the 21-meter-long shastasaurid Shonisaurus sikanniensis.

"As the specimen is represented only by a large piece of jaw, it is difficult to provide a size estimate," said Dean Lomax, an ichthyosaur expert at the University of Manchester.

"But by using a simple scaling factor and comparing the same bone in S. sikanniensis, the Lilstock specimen is about 25 percent larger."

Fossil remains of ichthyosaurs suggest they lived throughout the Mesozoic Era, 251 million years ago until 65 million years ago, but they were not considered dinosaurs.

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Paleontologists put the bite on an ancient reptile from New England

Date:  March 23, 2018

Source:  Yale University

Summary:

Scientists have identified a new species of reptile from prehistoric Connecticut and, boy, does it have a mouth on it. Named Colobops noviportensis, the creature lived 200 million years ago and had exceptionally large jaw muscles -- setting it apart from other reptiles at the time. Even compared to the wide diversity of reptile species today, Colobops noviportensis had quite the bite.

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Jackpot! Hiker Discovers Ancient Reptile Footprints Near Las Vegas

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | November 1, 2016 04:58pm ET

SALT LAKE CITY — About 290 million years ago, a four-legged reptile with three toes on each of its back feet strolled across the mucky land, the waves of a tidal flat likely lapping near its feet, a new study finds.

The ancient environment preserved this creature's footprints in a fossilized trackway that researchers are calling Chelichnus gigas. (Scientists name trackways like they do new species.) However, although researchers have a clear view of the animal's back feet, the shape of its front feet remains a mystery.

That's because like many four-legged (or tetrapodal) animals, this ancient critter's back feet would have stepped directly on top of the freshly made footprints of its front feet, meaning that the front footprints are obscured by the back ones, said study lead researcher Stephen Rowland, a professor of geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

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New reptile species from 212 million years ago

Undergraduate geoscience researchers leads study

Date: September 8, 2016

Source: Virginia Tech

An extinct reptile related to crocodiles that lived 212 million years ago in present day New Mexico has been named as a new species, Vivaron haydeni, in a paper published this week by Virginia Tech's Department of Geosciences researchers.

Leading the paper that names the previously unknown animal is undergraduate researcher Emily Lessner of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, a double major in the departments of Geosciences and Biological Sciences, both in the Virginia Tech College of Science. Lessner's paper detailing the fossil of the animal -- jawbones, other skull fragments, and hip-bones -- appears in this week's open science journal, PeerJ.

Vivaron haydeni was found in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, in 2009 during an excavation co-led by Sterling Nesbitt, then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and now an assistant professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech. Some of the fossils remained sealed in protective plaster jackets until 2014, when they were transported to Blacksburg for study. That's where Lessner enters.

At the time a sophomore majoring in Biological Sciences with a minor in Geosciences, she was seeking an independent research experience that piqued her interest and provided a challenge. She found it with the Paleobiology Research Group in Derring Hall.

Nesbitt had not arrived on campus yet and was looking for students interested in conducting research projects. When Lessner heard of the opportunity and the chance to work with Nesbitt and Michelle Stocker, also a newly arriving paleontologist in the college, Lessner jumped at the chance.

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Paleontologist names a carnivorous reptile that preceded dinosaurs

Date:

January 20, 2015

Source:

Virginia Tech

Summary:

Paleontologist have now named a 9-foot-long carnivorous reptile with steak knife-like teeth and bony plates on the back. Its name is Nundasuchus.

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Group to sue feds for reptile, amphibian protections - via Herp Digest

By Jim Waymer, USA TODAY, December 10, 2014

A conservation group threatens to sue unless the feds step up reptile and amphibian protections.

The Center for Biological Diversity sent a notice Wednesday to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,threatening to sue within 60 days if the agency failed to move forward to protect 17 rare reptiles and amphibians in the southeast, 11 of them in Florida.

They are among 53 reptiles and amphibians the Arizona-based non-profit group wants the federal government to protect under theEndangered Species Act. And they represent some of America's most imperiled species of toads, salamanders, lizards, turtles and snakes, the group says.

"All these species are facing threats," said Collette Adkins Giese, a biologist and lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Ultimately, if we got these species listed, there would be protection of their habitat."

Prohibitions on collecting the rare reptile and amphibian species for the pet trade also could result, she said.

The group had formally asked the federal government to protect the 53 species in a July 2012 petition — the largest of its kind ever filed focusing only on amphibians and reptiles. The species include seven snakes, six turtles, two toads, four frogs, 10 lizards and 24 salamanders.

But more than two years later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to determine whether the species require more protection.

The 450-page petition details the threats to the 53 species in 45 states. It cites habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species and climate change among the main threats.

Eleven of the species on the list live in Florida, including the alligator snapping turtle, the key ringneck snake and the Florida scrub lizard.

Scientists estimate 25% of the nation's amphibians and reptiles are at risk of extinction, the petition notes. But only 67 of about 1,400 species in America protected under the Endangered Species Act are amphibians or reptiles.

One of the species on the group's petition list, the alligator snapping turtle, once thrived throughout the southeastern United States, including Florida. But recent population surveys show the turtles are now likely extirpated in Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, with declines up to 95% over much their historic range from too much harvest and unchecked habitat degradation. Hunters still look to feed thriving world markets for the exhibition and consumption of the turtles.

"We'll move forward with a lawsuit unless they comply," Adkins Giese said. "We're hoping to get them Endangered Species Act Protection, so they'll be around for all of us to enjoy."

Florida species group wants federally protected

1. Alligator snapping turtle

2. Spotted turtle

3. Apalachicola kingsnake

4. Florida pine snake

5. Key ringneck snake

6. Rim rock crowned snake

7. Short-tailed snake

8. Southern hog-nosed snake

9. Carolina gopher frog

10. Cedar key mole skink

1. Florida scrub lizard

Why are scientists studying this weird reptile’s genes (tuatara) – via Herp Digest

July 1, 2013,Philly.com by Matt Soniak-- Not every line of scientific enquiry will make your teeth whiter or improve the gas mileage on your car, but that doesn't render scientific endeavors that don't deal with optimum petroleum efficiency or dental cleanliness entirely worthless. Where the value in a specific enquiry lies can be hard to pin down for the everyman, though, especially if news stories about said research don't make that clear. 

For their tuatara genome sequencing project, a group of scientists in New Zealand are cutting out the middleman and blogging their way through their research. Their first post is "Why sequence the tuatara genome?" So, straight from the horse's mouth, here's why they're looking at the genome of lizards' cousins (SPOILER ALERT: Evolution). 

To understand why a tuatara genome is such a tantalising prospect for scientists you need to know how the tuatara relates to other reptiles. All life on earth is connected by a shared evolutionary history. When biologists try to organise the diversity of life on earth, we reconstruct that history by finding groups of species that all descend from a shared common ancestor. 

You sometimes hear people mistakenly call tuatara “living dinosaurs”. In fact, as you can see in the figure above, tuatara are much more interesting than that. If you want to study a living dinosaur you only need to look out the nearest window. Modern birds descend from one branch in the diverse group we call dinosaurs, but each of those ten thousand species are dinosaurs. The tuatara, on the other hand, are the only living members of a lineage that separated from other reptiles more than 200 million years ago. 

By placing modern organisms in the context of their evolutionary history, we can work out which traits were present in ancestral species, and reconstruct the changes that gave rise to modern ones. As the tuatara is the only living witness to hundreds of millions of years of evolution, its genome sequence will be immensely valuable in understanding the genetic changes that have allowed reptiles to evolve and diversify. 

In fact, even the tiny amount that we already know about tuatara genetics has helped us understand not just the evolution of reptiles, but how mammals (like us) have evolved. [Sequencing the Tuatara Genome]