Fossil Bones of Unknown Reptile Are Found

U.S. scientists have used an industrial-sized computed tomography scanner to study 200 million-year-old fossils embedded in stone.

The fossilized bones of the previously unknown, long-necked gliding reptile — named Mecistrotrachelos apeoros, meaning soaring, long-necked — were discovered in a quarry along the Virginia-North Carolina border.

The specimens were found embedded in a hard dolomitized dark gray, silty mudstone. Only faint impressions of the bones can be seen at the surface. Repeated attempts to remove the matrix using both mechanical and chemical techniques were unsuccessful.

The specimens were scanned at Penn State’s Center for Quantitative Imaging at a resolution of about 1-10th of a millimeter or less. The researchers could determine the fossilized feet were curved, indicating the reptiles probably lived in trees.

Both the fossil specimens and the image data from the scan are preserved and can be reviewed and reanalyzed in the future.

The research team — including Paul Olsen of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and Alton Dooley of the Virginia Museum of Natural History — reported in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.