Triops Longicaudatus
Triops Longicaudatus Red
Triops Longicaudatus
Triops Longicaudatus Red
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New discovery: ‘Bolg’ lizard from Utah is reminiscent of fantasy orcs
Researchers in Utah have discovered a previously unknown species of lizard from the late Cretaceous period and named it after an orc chieftain from Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’. This species is around 75 million years old.
The new species bears the name Bolg amondol, a reference to the orc warrior Bolg from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world. The discovery was recently published in the journal Royal Society Open Science and has caused a stir among experts.
An armoured huntress from prehistoric times
The lizard, which was about the size of a raccoon, had a massive, armoured skull and pointed teeth, indicating that it probably preyed on eggs and smaller vertebrates. Despite its small body size, this made it one of the more dangerous predators of its time. “By today’s standards, Bolg was an impressive animal, about the size of a steppe monitor lizard. Not something you would want to encounter in the prehistoric forest,” explains the lead author of the study, Hank Woolley from the Dinosaur Institute of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
‘When I look at this skull, I immediately think of orcs,’ says Woolley. The species name amondol comes from the invented elven language Sindarin and means ‘hill head’ – an allusion to the characteristic curved bone plates that cover the lizard’s skull.
A find from the museum
Woolley discovered the new species by chance while going through old collections at the Natural History Museum of Utah. In a jar simply labelled ‘lizard’, he came across a fragmentary skeleton that eventually turned out to be a scientific sensation. ‘I saw the bones and knew immediately that I was looking at something special,’ recalls Woolley.
The remains consist of tiny fragments of the skull, pelvis, limbs, armour plates and some vertebrae. Despite the fragmentary state, the researchers succeeded in reconstructing a new species. ‘The special thing about this holotype specimen is that all the parts appear to belong to a single individual – nothing is duplicated,’ says Woolley.
Insights into the primeval forests of North America
The site is located in the Kaiparowits Formation in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, a region known for its rich fossil deposits, but which has so far yielded hardly any large lizard finds of this type. The discovery of Bolg amondol thus fills an important gap in our understanding of the ecosystems of the time.
As the study shows, Bolg was not alone: other finds from the region indicate that at least three large predatory lizard species lived in what was then southern Utah. ‘This suggests that these animals played a far more important role in the food web of the dinosaur era than previously thought,’ says co-author Joe Sertich from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Relationship reaches as far as the Gobi Desert
Particularly noteworthy: The closest known relative of Bolg amondol comes from the Gobi Desert in Asia. This supports the hypothesis that not only dinosaurs but also smaller animals spread between the continents in the late Cretaceous period. At that time, Asia and North America were still connected by land bridges, which made migrations of this kind possible.
The new discovery shows once again how important old museum collections are for research and how they can bring surprising stories from prehistoric times to light using modern methods.
