PITTSBURGH – A freshman geology student on a field trip stumbled across the fossil of an oversized, salamanderlike creature with vicious crocodile-like teeth that lived about 300 million years ago, paleontologists said.
Scientists say the find is both a new species and a new genus, a broader category in the classification of plants and animals. Talks are under way about what to call the new species, starting with “Striegeli,” after the University of Pittsburgh student who found it.
Initially, Adam Striegel picked up the softball-sized rock along a road cut near Pittsburgh International Airport, and thinking it was of little interest, threw it aside. Walking back through the same area, he retrieved the stone and showed it to class lecturer Charles Jones.
Jones spotted the teeth first, then the outline of a skull.
The creature, believed to have been 3 to 4 feet long, is “new to science, but we know it belongs to fairly terrestrial-adapted amphibians living in the Pennsylvanian Period, about 300 million years ago,” said Christopher Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum.
The rock encasing the fossil was carefully chipped away by Berman and his team, revealing a boxy skull slightly larger than that of a large cat. The cheeks are roughly at right angles to the top of the skull. Long rows of spiky teeth along with three sets of tusks line the roof of the mouth.
In the coming months, Scientists will fan out across the area where the fossil was found as vegetation dies off, looking for the rest of the body, and possibly more.
Associated Press
Scientists say this fossil of an unnamed creature represents a new species and genus.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
