Fossil long known as world's oldest reptile dethroned
For nearly 30 years, a small fossil from Scotland has been celebrated as one of the earliest known reptiles. A new study out today in Nature and led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Oxford, in collaboration with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, is rewriting that story.
A famous fossil, Westlothiana lizziae, has been reconsidered after a new study revealed it was likely not the world's earliest reptile as previously thought. Discovered in 1984 in Scotland, the 345-million-year-old fossil was originally thought to be an ancestor of land-adapted amniotes, which include reptiles, birds, and mammals.
However, recent X-ray scans at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility showed that Westlothiana had primitive skull features, internal gills, and a fish-like mouth with thousands of tiny teeth, indicating it was aquatic or amphibious. The team of researchers, led by the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Oxford, concluded that the traits once believed to be exclusive to land-adapted amniotes, such as the animal's claws and foot structure, actually evolved earlier in more aquatic members of the tetrapod lineage.
This finding challenges previous interpretations of fossil trackways and highlights the complex evolutionary history of early tetrapods.
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