Scientists in Gloucestershire name new species of prehistoric lizard after Harry Potter curse
This article originally appeared on Culture24.
Smallest clevosaur species ever described lived on British archipelago at least 205 million years ago
A reconstruction of what Clevosaurus sectumsemper may have looked like© Katharine WhitesideClevosaurus sectumsemper, the smallest clevosaur species ever described, was found by Catherine Klein during research on fossils from Woodleaze Quarry in Gloucestershire.
It is characterised by a specially adapted dentition which allowed it to tackle much larger food than would normally be expected for such a small animal.
Its tightly-packed, carefully arranged teeth were always sharpening themselves. As a result, old individuals would have been left with sharp ridges of bone as a cutting surface.
The name is inspired by a particularly nasty curse from Harry Potter. Sectumsempra, invented by Professor Snape, causes the victim’s body to be continually cut in the same way that the lizard’s teeth were always being cut.
During the late Triassic, the hills in south-west Britain formed an archipelago inhabited by small dinosaurs and relatives of the Tuatara, a living fossil from New Zealand. Clevosaurus sectumsemper probably lived near the edge of the ancient archipelago’s islands in a relatively hostile environment.
“This would explain why nearly all the bones come from one species and why there is a relatively high occurrence of healed fractures such as one we found in a rib,” says Klein. “Possibly the animals were fighting each other due to a limited food source or perhaps they preyed on each other and bones were broken.”
Woodleaze Quarry lies 800 metres south of Tytherington Quarry, which produced bones of the Bristol dinosaur Thecodontosaurus. This allows researches to make another interesting deduction.
“It is remarkable from an ancient geography point of view," says Dr David Whiteside, who originally described the fauna of Tytherington.
"We have evidence of a gradual decline in species richness from the northern Tytherington fissures to the almost complete dominance of Clevosaurus sectumsemper in the fauna of Woodleaze, in the south as the edge of the ancient island is reached.
"Perhaps we are documenting the details of geographic distribution at the time.”
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