300m-year-old fossil is early sign of creatures caring for their young

[Judi Lynn]

Fossil found in Canada suggests pair were curled up together in a den when they died

Nicola Davis
@NicolaKSDavis
Mon 23 Dec 2019 11.00 ESTLast modified on Mon 23 Dec 2019 14.15 EST

Fossil hunters say they have unearthed the earliest evidence yet of four-limbed vertebrates looking after their young, after discovering the entwined remains of two lizard-like creatures preserved in an ancient plant stump.

The fossil found in Nova Scotia, Canada, is thought to be the remains of an adult and young of a newly identified species of varanopid.

“[The adult] probably would have been about 20cm in length from the tip of the snout to the base of its tail, and it would have had a long tail,” said Hillary Maddin, a co-author of the research and an assistant professor at Carleton University in Canada.

The smaller individual was found beneath the upper leg bone of the larger one, and was encircled by the larger creatures’s tail – an entwinement that the team say suggests the two animals were curled up together in a den.

The den appears to have been made in a hollowed-out stump of a plant known as a lycopsid. “These very fragile fossils, especially the baby, are preserved in a very natural-like position and would have to have been buried very quickly,” said Maddin, adding that the stump was probably inundated with sediment, possibly in a storm.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/dec/23/300m-year-old-fossil-is-early-sign-of-creatures-caring-for-their-young

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Wow.

Evolution is completely amazing.

A while back I watched a three part series about penguins, and for me the greatest takeaway was how amazing evolution is.