Credit: Stephanie Abramowicz/Peretti Museum Foundation/Current Biology.

The new species, named Oculudentavis naga in honor of the Naga people of Myanmar and India, is represented by a partial skeleton that includes a complete skull, exquisitely preserved in amber with visible scales and soft tissue.

The specimen is in the same genus as Oculudentavis khaungraae, whose original description as the smallest known bird was retracted last year.

Bolet and fellow lizard experts from around the world first noted the specimen while studying a collection of amber fossils acquired from Myanmar by gemologist Adolf Peretti.

Oculudentavis naga, top, is in the same genus as Oculudentavis khaungraae, bottom, a specimen whose controversial identification as an early bird was retracted last year?

Credit: Edward Stanley of the Florida Museum of Natural History/Peretti Museum Foundation/Current Biology.

The distortions highlighted birdlike features in one skull and lizard-like features in the other, said study co-author Edward Stanley, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Digital Discovery and Dissemination Laboratory.

Credit: Adolf Peretti/Peretti Museum Foundation/Current Biology.

naga specimen, the team was also able to identify a raised crest running down the top of the snout and a flap of loose skin under the chin that may have been inflated in display, Evans said.

It’s unlike any other lizard we have today,” Daza said.

The Cretaceous Period, 145.5 to 66 million years ago, gave rise to many lizard and snake groups on the planet today, but tracing fossils from this era to their closest living relatives can be difficult, Daza said.

naga is now available digitally to anyone with Internet access, which allows the team’s findings to be reassessed and opens up the possibility of new discoveries, Stanley said.

Researchers can therefore be quite protective of it, but our mindset is ‘Let’s put it out there,'” Stanley said.

While Myanmar’s amber deposits are a treasure trove of fossil lizards found nowhere else in the world, Daza said the consensus among paleontologists is that acquiring Burmese amber ethically has become increasingly difficult, especially after the military seized control in February.

Salvador Arias of Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET – Miguel Lillo Foundation); Andrej Cernansky of Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia; Aaron Bauer of Villanova University; Joseph Bevitt of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation; and Adolf Peretti of the Peretti Museum Foundation in Switzerland.

naga fossil is housed at the Peretti Museum Foundation in Switzerland, and the O.

All documentation is available from the Peretti Museum Foundation upon request

June 12, 2021

June 12, 2021

June 12, 2021

June 12, 2021

June 11, 2021