Extinct Giant Lizard Named After Jim Morrison
- by Afp
A GIANT LIZARD THAT LIVED 40 MILLION YEARS AGO AT A TIME WHEN EARTH WAS A HOTHOUSE HAS BEEN NAMED IN HONOUR OF ROCK SINGER JIM MORRISON.
Around 1.80m (six feet) from snout to tail and tipping the scales at up to 27 kilos (60 pounds), the plant-eating reptile is one of the biggest-known lizards ever to have lived on land.
It competed with mammals for food in the humid tropical forests of Southeast Asia.
A fossil of the beast, found in sediment in Sagaing district in Burma, has been dated to the late-middle Eocene period, when Earth was so hot there was no ice at its poles.
