Scientists have found a previously undiscovered ancient species of amphibian — and named it after one of the most famous frogs of all time.
In a new research paper published Thursday in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, scientists working with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History announced that they have identified the fossilized skull of a 270-million-year-old amphibian with wide eyes and a wide mouth. The newly discovered “proto-amphibian” will be named Kermitops gratus after the Muppet character Kermit the Frog.
According to scientists, naming a prehistoric species after a legendary frog like Kermit is a way to bridge the gap between historians, researchers and the general public.
“Using the name Kermit has significant implications for how we can bridge the science of paleontologists in museums with the public,” said Calvin So, a doctoral student at George Washington University and lead author of the research paper. press release. “Since this animal is a distant relative of today’s amphibians, and Kermit is a modern amphibian icon, it was the perfect name for her.”
Billions of cicadas arrive amid rare double brood — see where the insects will be this spring
The name, of course, comes from Jim Henson’s original 1955 Muppets character and the Greek suffix “-ops,” meaning face. Much like Kermit, scientists said Kermitops had massive, cartoonish eyes. The species name “gratus” was chosen in honor of the late paleontologist Nicholas Hotton III, who worked at the Smithsonian and made several trips to dig at the north-central Texas site where the skull was found.
According to researchers, the first clue they had that they had discovered an unknown species of frog came in 2021, when Smithsonian postdoctoral paleontologist Arjan Mann spotted a mysterious-looking skull in a shipment of fossils from a dig site in Texas.
“One fossil immediately jumped out at me — this really well-preserved, mostly dissected skull,” Mann, a co-author on the paper, said in a release.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
The skull of Kermitops gratus was different from other prehistoric frog genera, the scientists said, which helped them determine that it did not belong to an already known creature.
This recently studied skull had a much smaller eye area than its snout, the researchers said, which may have allowed the animal — which “probably resembled a large salamander” — to catch tiny insects.
Staff ‘absolutely delighted’ by birth of rare pygmy hippo at Athens Zoo: ‘Extremely important’
The researchers also noted that this new discovery is key to studying how modern amphibians came to be – as well as how their prehistoric ancestors looked and behaved. They concluded that the Kermitops gratus fossil was a temnospondyl, or “a diverse group of primitive amphibian relatives that lived over 200 million years from the Carboniferous to the Triassic.”
“Kermitops offers us clues to bridge this huge fossil gap and begin to see how frogs and salamanders evolved these truly specialized traits,” added So.
“This is an active area of research that many more paleontologists need to dive into again,” Mann said in a press release. “Paleontology is always about more than just dinosaurs and there are a lot of cool evolutionary stories and mysteries still waiting to be answered. We just have to keep looking.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education