ANCIENT REPTILESThis finding dragged the group back in time by 75 million years, and means that "lizards inhabited the planet since at least 240 million years ago," study co-author Tiago Simoes of the University of Alberta in Canada said. That, in turn, suggested that squamates had already split from other ancient reptiles before the Permian/Triassic mass extinction some 252 million years ago, and survived it. "When I first saw the fossil I realised it had important features that could link it to the early evolution of lizards," he said. So he hooked up with colleagues to perform a more detailed analysis of the tiny skeleton, which included CT scanning. For Simoes, the study is about more than the history of lizards.

Source: Daily Nation May 31, 2018 04:07 UTC