Scientists from an expedition to the Great Inland Salt Lake in 2017 analyzed the remains of
New species presented in an article for R magazineoyal Society Open Science, described as the oldest in Australia.Skink Proegernia mikebulli is more than 25 million years old. Paleontologists and volunteers from Flinders University and the South Australian Museum have discovered his remains in a rich fossil at Pinpa Lake.
Following the crusty coastlinesalt lake, the team settled on the sediment section where the fossil remains of the ancestors of the koala, a bird of prey, and fragments of thylacin were previously found. Remains of prehistoric fish, platypus, dolphins and crocodiles have also been found nearby.
Australia's once green hinterlandare considered the cradle of Australia's unique fauna and, in particular, its reptile diversity. However, fossil lizards are often too small to be recognized in the field. Their skulls are made up of over 20 separate bones, which are all exfoliated when fossilized.
The discovery of tiny fossils, she saidlizards in an area the size of a million football fields were made possible by understanding the geology of the region and carefully sorting all samples for laboratory research.
When researchers placed the fossil inan evolutionary tree of lizards, it was revealed that she is one of the first members of the Australian skink subfamily Egerniinae - a group that now includes bluetongues, sleepy lizards, land mullets and thorny skinks.
The recently described lizard Proegernia mikebullinamed after the late Flinders University professor Mike Bull, who passed away suddenly at the end of 2016. His research career, Professor Bull, has focused on skinks of the Egerniinae subfamily, their behavior, parasites and conservation.
Read more
Abortion and science: what will happen to the children who will give birth
Unknown animals resembling sponges found in the ice of Antarctica
Look at an 8 trillion pixel image of Mars