Museum Storing Fossilized Bones Leads to Discovery of New Species: Goblin-Like

In the world of paleontology, each new discovery can change our understanding of the Earth's most ancient epochs. After more than two decades, a unique fossil was discovered at the Utah Museum of Natural History (USA), which led to the discovery of a new species of lizard that lived in the late Cretaceous period - about 76 million years ago.

Back in 2005, fossils were discovered near the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah that immediately attracted the attention of scientists. At that time, they were just fragments of bones, carefully packed in a container labeled “lizard.” These remains were stored in a museum for a long time, without attracting much interest, since they seemed like an ordinary find among many fossils.

However, almost 20 years later, one of the museum's employees, Hank Woolley, decided to take another look at the fossils. The man noticed that the skeleton, despite its fragmentary state, contained unique features that indicated a previously unknown species of lizard. He noted that the bones did not overlap and most likely belonged to a single creature, which allows scientists to reconstruct its appearance and understand its place in the ancient ecosystem.

The study describes a new species, Bolg amondol. The name comes from the name of the goblin leader in Tolkien's The Hobbit, Bolg. According to scientists, the lizard was about the size of a raccoon, and its body length, including its tail, was about a meter. It looked like a "goblin jumping off a cliff."

The species is characterized by osteoderms, bony deposits on the scalp that resemble hills or mountain peaks. These features, according to the researchers, indicate that Bolg amondol was an ancestor of modern venomous lizards such as the Gila monster, one of the most dangerous reptiles on the planet.

Researchers have found that at least three species of predatory lizards existed in the region of modern-day southern Utah, indicating high ecological stability and biodiversity.

“These fossils show that North America was home to complex and diverse predatory reptiles that preyed on dinosaurs and other animals at that time,” says Randall Irmis, curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah. He adds that such finds help us understand how ancient ecosystems formed and how species evolved.

Interestingly, these remains were discovered back in 2005, but remained in the shadows for a long time. The reason is that they were in a jar labeled “lizard,” and no one paid much attention to them. It was only years later, when Woolley and his colleagues began systematically reviewing the collections, that they noticed that these fossils had unique features that distinguished them from known species.

“This discovery shows that even in the age of dinosaurs, there was a huge diversity of large lizards, many of which disappeared without a trace,” says Joseph Sertich, adding that such finds help us understand how species migrated and evolved, as well as how climate and environmental conditions changed.