الجمعة, يوليو 7th 2023
Basel researchers accidentally discovered the fossils of giant lizard, thus providing enough evidence to prove that monitor lizards once lived in Switzerland, according to an article published this week in the scientific journal Swiss Journal of Geoscience.
The paleontologist Bastien Mennecart discovered two incomplete teeth between hundreds of fossil bones and teeth in the paleontological vertebrate collection of the Natural History Museum Basel. The fossils came from the Emmental region outside of Bern.
The Swiss paleontologist worked in collaboration with an international team of researchers from Poland and Germany to determine that the shape of the distinctive teeth and their interior teeth correspond to typical features of monitor lizards.
The large venomous lizards live on Africa, Asia and Australian continents. Only in recent years have paleontologists found evidence that they once lived in Europe; those remains were found in Greece. With a body length of up to three meters, they are among the largest land iguanas in the world.
With an estimated age of 17 million years, the fossil teeth are among the oldest pieces of evidence of the giant lizard in Europe. At that time, it was five to ten degrees Celsius warmer in Switzerland than it is today, according to the Basel Natural History Museum.
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