Ancient Scottish Salamander is 14 Million Years Older Than Previously Thought
Forty years ago, an amateur Scottish paleontologist named Stan Wood made a fascinating discovery, discovering Westlothiana lizziae,, Nicknamed “Lizzie”. The old Salamandre has filled a niche that geologists have been following for years, marking the transition from the first water from water to earth.
The oldest life began with the emergence of more complex creatures, formed about 560 million years ago, in the oceans of the earth. Lizzie is an ancient tetrapod, and its transition from navy to earth was one of the most important developments to understand how life was formed on the planet. She looked like a small lizard with four legs and measured about 20 cm (~ 7 inches). She lived in fresh water and probably hunted small creatures in her habitat.
Scotland would have seemed very different from what it does today, a real tropical forest where volcanoes abounded and a treasure of ancient tetrapods prospered. Tetrapods are a species that has retained some of their fish characteristics in their evolution from fish with lobe nuts, including fins and gills, but also had four legs and finally walked on earth.
Learn more:: Animals may have evolved from sea to land 35 million years earlier than thought once
What is a amniote and why is it important?
The Westlothiana lizziae fossil, which was found in the career of East Kirkton in West Lothian, in Scotland. (IAMGE credit: National Museums Scotland)
Lizzie is one of the oldest known amniotes, the ancestors of reptiles, birds and mammals, which would have lived more than 300 million years ago. This means that Lizzie is also a common ancestor for humans. These specimens, known as “East Kirkland Fossils”, play a key role in animal evolution.
However, this critical fossil had never been properly dated before the doctorate of the University of Texas. Student Hector Garza had the opportunity, publishing the results in a recent Plos a Article with the help of his teacher Elizabeth J. Catlos.
“He came from a museum in Scotland and no one really knew his date,” explains the study author Elizabeth J. Catlos, geologist at the University of Texas in Austin.
Once they were provided part of the specimen, the researchers used a technique called Radiometric datingwhich analyzes the decrease of radioactive isotopes to calculate the age of the rock. Catlos was surprised that the technique had never been used before on such an important specimen.
Zircon in the rock crystals provided the information that researchers needed to go out with the rock 14 million years more than it was before, Catlos explains. Zircon crystals were originally formed from magma, and due to their sustainability, they can be used to go out with extremely ancient rocks, painting an image of a world a long time ago.
Unlock the gap of the mysterious Romer
The new conclusions date from Lizzie to a period called Romer’s gapwhere researchers have almost no fossils. It is a literal black hole in the fossil file. The gap extends from 360 million to 345 million years, an early period of carboniferous for which researchers have few specimens.
The reasons for the gap are not completely clear, but some researchers think that it is because of a transition in the rocks themselves and the way they were kept during this period. Alternatively, the rocks may simply have not yet been discovered. But whatever reason, Lizzie seems to come from this mysterious period of the history of our land.
Catlos says that answering questions like these comes down to museums allowing their specimens to be properly analyzed. She says that often these rocks, which are fragile and invaluable, come from museums that do not want to separate from them. However, for them to be properly dated, geologists must be able to analyze them using the most modern technology.
In this case, the researchers received parts from the sample, and they made a great discovery, but this is often not the case.
“If we want to answer these big questions, museums must make the rocks at our disposal,” explains Catlos.
Learn more:: The rise of tetrapods: how our first ancestors left water to walk on earth
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Sara Novak is a scientific journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing to discover, his work appears in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine and many others. She obtained a Baccalaureate in journalism from the Grady School of Journalism from the University of Georgia. She is also a candidate for a master’s degree in scientific writing from Johns Hopkins University.
