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.

The new ancient reptile has been named Erpetonyx arsenaultorum after the family of Michael Arsenault of Prince County, P.E.I., who found the fossil on a beach when he was a young boy. (Courtesy Sean Modesto/Cape Breton University)

‘They built a box and Michael kept it under his bed for many years. He knew it was very valuable.’— Bette Sheen, family friend of Michael Arsenault

The Gzhelian Age was a five-million-year span that started about 304 million years ago, just 10 million years after the first reptiles appeared.

Erpetonyx helps fill a big gap in the fossil record, revealing that there were nearly twice as many kinds of reptiles living around that time as scientists previously believed, Modesto said.

At the time that Erpetonyx lived, P.E.I. was located on the equator and its home was likely a tropical forest.

The animal was about 25 centimetres long — about the size of a chameleon — and would have looked like an average modern-day lizard, even though it isn’t closely related to them. Its sharp, peg-like teeth showed it likely ate insects and small amphibians rather than plants.

“Anything that it could catch or stuff down its throat it probably ate,” said Modesto.

Source:Article By By Emily Chung, CBC News