Giant Lizard Fossil Named for 'Doors' Singer Jim Morrison, Lived Alongside Mammals
- by Carl Franzen
Who says scientists don't have a sense of humor? Paleontologists studying the fossilized remains of a giant, plant-eating lizard that roamed the country of Myanmar (Burma) up to 40 million years ago have given the creature the scientific name barbaturex morrisoni after classic rock icon Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, who nicknamed himself "the Lizard King."
More importantly, the date range ascribed to the fossilized bones indicates that the lizard lived at the same time as early mammals, a time period when the Earth was much warmer than it is today, when there was no ice at the poles and when there was more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
These facts, combined with the lizard's body size—about six feet long and 60 pounds—suggests that the comparatively smaller size of land lizards today is limited more by the cooler climate, and less by competition with other plant-eating mammals. "We think the warm climate during that period of time allowed the evolution of a large body size and the ability of plant-eating lizards to successfully compete in mammal faunas," said Jason Head, a paleontology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who lead the team studying the lizards. If Earth warms up at a steady pace again, the climate could prove favorable to allow such giant lizards to evolve again, but Head said the climate is changing too rapidly now for that to be likely.
