[ISL] "Fossil found by P.E.I. boy fills gap in reptile evolution"

[rfmcdonald]

The Dragon's Tales linked to the charming story of how a boy in western Prince Edward Island found an ancient and apparently important fossil. CBC has more.

A fossil of a lizard-like creature found by a boy on a Prince Edward Island beach is a new species and the only reptile in the world ever found from its time, 300 million years ago, a new study shows.

The fossilized species has been named Erpetonyx arsenaultorum after the family of Michael Arsenault of Prince County, P.E.I., who found the fossil at Cape Egmont, said a study published this week in the Proceedings of Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

"Our animal is the only reptile known from this time period called the Gzhelian," said Sean Modesto, a paleontologist at Cape Breton University who was the lead author of the new paper about the fossil, now in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. He collaborated with researchers at the ROM, University of Toronto at Mississauga, and the Smithsonian Institution.

[. . .]

A couple of decades ago, Michael Arsenault, then 9 years old, was vacationing with his family at a cottage in western P.E.I. owned by the family of his four-year-old friend Alex Lapp.

One day, the two boys were fossil hunting on the beach when Arsenault spotted part of a fossil backbone.

Bette Sheen, a family friend, said the Arsenault family removed the slab of rock containing the fossil, built a box for it, and Michael kept it under his bed for many years.