Scientists unearth 230-million-year-old fossil of ancient reptile with beak-like mouth in Wyoming

A total of five rhynchosaur specimens were found in the exposed rock parts of the formation in the northern Rocky Mountains. Upper and lower jawbones were among the identified fragments belonging to this new species.

After closely inspecting the fragments with a CT scanner, the team found that this squat reptile had a parrot-like beak. Interestingly, unlike the other creatures that roamed the world during this period, it was not a massive beast. The fossil specimen indicates that an adult would have weighed between 11 to 15 pounds (five and seven kilograms) and measured nearly two feet long. 

“While the most surface texture and morphological features of specimens described herein have been lost or eroded beyond comparative use, the unique dental morphology of 12 new specimens allows for the referral of all to at least Rhynchosauria,” they wrote in the paper. 

The details of the new species have been reported in the journal Diversity.

Species named by tribal people for first time

The newly identified reptile has been named Beesiiwo cooowuse, which means “big lizard from the Alcova area” in the Arapaho tribal language. Since the 17th century, these Native Americans have lived on the plains of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas.

According to the official statement, this is the first time in Western science that a species name has been taken from the language of a tribal (Arapaho) people whose native lands the fossil specimens originated. It was named with the help of tribal elders, the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office, and paleontologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

“We get this multicultural, multigenerational interaction in the field where elders, FWS students, UW–Madison students, and scientists are all working together to integrate Western science, Native science, and traditional ecological knowledge,” concluded Lovelace.

Study Abstract:

New discoveries in the lower Popo Agie Formation (lower carbonate unit) of central Wyoming necessitated a reevaluation of USNM 494329 from the same unit, the only known hyperodapedontine rhynchosaur in western North America. Well known from Gondwanan deposits, hyperodapedontines appear to be restricted to the Carnian age (Late Triassic), with the exception of Teyumbaita in the earliest Norian age (Late Triassic) of Brazil. Initially assigned to c.f. ‘Hyperodapedon’ sanjuanensis, our phylogenetic analyses reject this hypothesis, in support of a sister relationship between USNM 494329 (Beesiiwo cooowuse, gen. et. sp. nov.) and Oryctorhynchus bairdi forming an early-diverging clade that is only distantly related to ‘H.’ sanjuanensis. Five additional specimens recovered from the lower Popo Agie are described. Three are referred to B. cooowuse, and another two are placed closer to Hyperodapedon and the remainder of Hyperodapedontinae. Our analysis demonstrates potential temporal distinction between a grade of earliest-diverging hyperodapedontines (including all Wyoming taxa) and a exclusively Late Carnian, Southern Pangaean hyperodapedontine clade (including ‘H.’ sanjuanensis). We consider the lower Popo Agie Formation to represent the first nonmarine Late Triassic unit of Western North America that can be confidently restricted to the Carnian age.