The Gila monster, a living relative of the fossil lizard found in Grande Prairie (Submitted by Corwin Sullivan – image credit)
Not far from the bank of Wapiti River, just 11 kilometres from Grande Prairie, there’s a paleontological goldmine: an ancient riverbed that contains fragments of skeletons of hundreds, possibly thousands, of animals from the late Cretaceous period, some 70 million years ago.
Discovered in 2014, the bonebed is known as a DC site, or, more formally, Wapiti Unit 3.
It yields a wide range of fossils and teeth from many species of prehistoric vertebrates, said Corwin Sullivan, a University of Alberta paleontologist who does fieldwork in Grande Prairie.
“We have small dinosaur material from there. We have mammal teeth, we have turtles, we have a few crocodilian teeth, we have fish material,” he said.
In this bonebed, paleontologists found remains of a relatively small prehistoric lizard — a type of animal whose fossils are found infrequently.
The discovery allows researchers to paint a more accurate picture of the biota in the Grande Prairie area some 70 million years ago. The findings were first described in a paper published in Geosciencesin November 2023.
In the DC site, paleontologists discovered an ankle bone and a skull bone on two consecutive days, July 28 and 29 in 2017. The ankle bone didn’t tell researchers much, but the skull bone allowed them to identify it as a lizard, thanks to the bony knobs fused with the top of the skull, called osteoderms.
Smaller fossils found infrequently
Most of the time when paleontologists find fossils, they come from larger animals, such as dinosaurs, Vavrek said. Their bones are more robust and tend to preserve “a bit better,” said Matthew Vavrek, a Grande Prairie paleontologist, who co-authored the paper. Big fossils are also just easier to see.
Smaller animals, such as lizards, turtles and crocodiles played important roles in the prehistoric ecosystem, Vavrek said, but because their bones are smaller and didn’t preserve nearly as well as bones of bigger animals, we have poor records of them.
This hinders our understanding of what the natural world looked like at that time.
“It’s important to appreciate that ancient ecosystems, like our modern ones, have animals of a variety of different sizes,” said James Gardner, a paleoherpetologist with the Royal Tyrrell Museum, who was not involved in the research.
“If you were to go out into a modern day environment here in Alberta, and only look at the larger animals, you get things like bison and elk, some of the bigger birds, some of the bigger fish,” he said.
“But you’d be missing all the the small mammals, the birds, the frogs, the snakes — all those that are important parts of the ecosystems.”
Ancient lizard has modern cousins
The lizard belongs to a group of animals called Monstersauria. It could be similar to a modern-day monitor lizard in appearance, Vavrek said. The lizard was about one metre in length, Sullivan said. Sullivan is also one of the study’s co-authors.
The lizard occupied an ecological niche resembling that of similarly-sized animals today, eating small prey, including small mammals, whose fossils were found in the Wapiti formation, Vavrek said.
Gila monster, a venomous lizard that resides in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, is a living member of the Monstersauria group. A desert-dwelling animal, it doesn’t tolerate cool temperatures very well.
It’s prehistoric relative, on the other hand, was much more adapted to a somewhat cooler climate, Gardner said, though it was still warmer than today. The climate was also more “equitable,” Sullivan said, with lesser temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. The fossils found represent the northernmost record of any definitive late Cretaceous monstersaur to date, the paper states.
The frontal skull bone of the fossil lizard. It comes from the middle of the skull roof, Sullivan said.
The frontal skull bone of the fossil lizard. It comes from the middle of the skull roof, said Corwin Sullivan, a University of Alberta paleontologist who does fieldwork in Grande Prairie. (Submitted by Robin Sissons)
Finding the skull bone is itself valuable, Sullivan said.
“Having a relatively complete one is actually kind of exceptional and special.”
“There’s just a bit of wow factor associated with this large, unusual lizard that’s related to the modern Gila monster.”
Sullivan pictures the area where the lizard lived as a “wet, swampy forest.” Collecting more fossil plants from the site will help scientists further understand the environment in the Cretaceous Grande Prairie, he said.
“It hasn’t really been an area of focus up to now, and I think it should be, given the paleo-environmental importance of of the flora.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
