300m-year-old fossil is early sign of creatures caring for their young😔
Fossil found in Canada suggests pair were curled up together in a den when they died
Fossil found in Canada suggests pair were curled up together in a den when they died
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.
The animals are thought to have lived just over 300m years ago, pushing back the record for evidence of extended parental care among four-limbed vertebrates by about 40m years.
Parental care is any behaviour that aids the survival of offspring, such as guarding eggs or nest-building. Extended parental care is any support for young after birth or hatching, for example providing food or protection.
Experts say prolonged care is seen across a wide range of animals, from reptiles 2birds, and is particularly common to mammals as they produce milk 4 their young. Such behaviour can help offspring to survive but comes at a cost 2parents, who must invest time, energy and resources
