The king lizard named Jim Morrison - BBC

remains of giant herbivorous reptiles can help predict how the Earth’s climate will change in the near future – concluded paleontologists. Tracing the evolution of lizards, scientists can establish the relationship of the size of the climatic changes.

In the 1970s, American paleontologist Russell Sayokon made a revolution in science, finding in Myanmar remains of the giant lizards that reached 180 centimeters in length and about 30 kilograms vesivshey.

Never before scientists have not seen the skeletons of herbivorous reptile of this size.

Jurassic Park in action

Carnivorous dinosaurs really were hunting at night, as shown in the movie “Jurassic Park.” Such findings made by scientists … ?

After a few decades, this is the largest known to science herbivorous lizard was named in honor of Jim Morrison , the leader of The Doors, who sang about himself: “I am the king of lizards. I can do everything ».

A few years ago, a team of researchers, led by Jason Hedom, began to study the skeleton in the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Berkeley . Their results, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. have shown that

the remains of a huge lizard may provide the key to a better understanding of the course of evolution of herbivorous reptiles

and answer the question of what their size depends to a large extent – from climate change or competition with mammals? To date, according to the Head, is not known exactly why – because of climate change and the fight against predatory animals – modern lizards, such as iguanas or agama are relatively small.

name lizard – Barbaturex morrisoni – born during the work on the remains. Paleontologists noticed that the lower jaw reptile has projections, it allows you to establish a connection between her and her living relatives, having a so-called beard (chameleons, bearded dragons, Agrionemys). Hence the name Barbaturex , which means “the bearded king.” Well morrisoni has arisen and that is easier:

kills the dragon blood loss

Huge Komodo dragon does not kill the toxins of bacteria, which are entered into the wound of their stinking mouths, but a real poison. Among other things, poisonous … ?

«I was listening to some songs of The Doors at work. These texts mention reptiles, and antiquity, and of Jim Morrison, of course, was the “king lizard”, so that one by one all came together »,

– says Head.

Before the advent of

Barbaturex morrisoni on the planet global warming was caused by a sudden and large-scale emission of carbon compounds into the atmosphere. (Scientists believe that about the same amount of carbon dioxide would be formed today if mankind once burned all the oil, coal and natural gas). Later, 36-40 million years ago (in the Eocene epoch ), the concentration of carbon dioxide has been falling, the Earth’s climate gradually changed from tropical to more cool and dry, but the poles of the planet were not covered by ice.

gradual disappearance of the jungle, which gave way to open woodlands, increasing the area of ??plains, warm climate, low levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – all this has led to an increase in size of the animals. “King of the lizards’ superior size of the majority of the then existing predators. Head believes

Hairy lizard

ancient lizards that roamed the earth millions of years ago, could be covered with hair. At least genes “hair” of proteins in the DNA … ?

exactly impressive size, acquired in the course of evolution, have allowed herbivorous reptiles survive in the fauna, which have come to dominate mammals.

Now that science knows about the existence of Barbaturex morrisoni , it faces the following questions: how long will remain a giant lizard record holder in size of herbivorous reptiles? What was the area of ??its distribution? How will climate change affect the size of the animal? And most importantly, if evolution is moving in a spiral and will not lead to today’s global warming return of the giant reptiles?

Head

so answers this question:

«If global temperatures increase the natural rate, while maintaining a natural and healthy wildlife habitat, we could talk about the likelihood of giant lizards, turtles, snakes and crocodiles.

not a beast and not a dinosaur not from Siberia

Siberia and the Urals have lost their right to be a “home” of ancient dinosaurs, combines the features of reptiles and mammals. Anteozavr of … ?

However, our atmosphere is changing very fast, the pace of climate change is too large to biological systems can adapt to them. So instead of sharing the huge reptiles we can face their disappearance ».

Meanwhile, the team of paleontologists reflects on how to become a “king lizard” link in the evolutionary chain, which can be used to reconstruct the course of the temperature change of the Earth and predict its future movement. According Heda,

«impossible to understand the evolution of modern ecosystems without examining its past path»,

and fossils – just the one book that can tell you about it.