Posted on 10/16/2020 10:20:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A peculiar, 220-million-year-old species of burrowing reptiles that evaded scientists has been found, fossilized. A team of National Park Service interns are credited with its discovery.
Hidden in a once-vibrant part of Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, the burgeoning paleontologists unearthed fossils of the Skybalonyx skapter, an "anteater-like reptile" that probably predates dinosaurs, according to findings published this month in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. It's a new species of a reptile previously thought to only live in trees.
The unusual Skybalonyx skapter belongs to the group Drepanosaur, often considered the ugly duckling of reptiles (perhaps partly because they bore some resemblance to fowl in life). The University of California Museum of Paleontology describes the creature's features as "seemingly drawn at random from evolution's spare parts box," with bird-like beaks and tails punctuated with a claw, almost too oddly fantastical to be real.
But the Skybalonyx skapter was real, and it lived in an area that was once overrun with life during the Triassic Period some 220 million years ago, Xavier Jenkins, a Idaho State University PhD student who was credited with the Skybalonyx's discovery, told CNN.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
In before the Helen Thomas reference. Is that the right name of that archaic windbag “reporter” that WBushie tried to coddle?
“the burgeoning paleontologists unearthed fossils”
Burgeoning paleontologists?
“seemingly drawn at random from evolution’s spare parts box,” -— Sounds like the winners of the Democrat primaries.
Lol...That was my first thought.
Looks like that skankie fossil Nancy Pelosi. Coming out of a hole in the ground is a good hint that it is her.
Wonder if Joe Biden is down there too.
If so, he could claim that he had 220 million years of training to be the president of Gondwonaland.
#2. When Moses left Egypt thousands of years ago, he deliberately left Helen Thomas behind. He figured, correctly, that he and the Hebrew people would have enough trouble surviving in the desert without having an anti-Semitic, backstabbing psychobitch in their midst.
Besides, Baal needed a “groupy”.
Yes, they were interns.
The burgeoning paleontologists were once hidden in Petrified Forest National Park. That’s what the article says, it must be true.
The author tried to type "Burgess Shale paleontologists." (The paleontologists in question had previously achieved acclaim studying Cambrian fossils.)
Damn auto-correct!
Regards,
Who are you to judge?
I guess they are students. “Young paleontologists” might have seemed odd.
The paleontologists should have done their burgeoning in the privacy of their own homes instead of while unearthing fossils.
The male Skybalonyx skapters took one look at the female Skybalonyx skapters and decided to let their species die out.
Skybalonyx? Balony! Maybe the interns were evading their bosses and found out where the reptiles were evading the scientists!
PING
Helen Thomas? When I saw "fossilized," I was expecting Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein...
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