The secrets of the 250-million-year-old Elgin Marvel Fossil have been discovered at Bristol University

High-tech scanning of an ancient fossil, which was captured in sandstone around 252-254 million years ago, is giving experts valuable insight into the animal’s anatomy and evolution.

The pig-like animal with tusks, which belonged to a species called Gordonia traquairi, lived in a time before the dinosaurs, when the Earth consisted of a single landmass known as Pangea.

It is from an extinct group of species known as dicynodonts, which are characterized by their squat bodies, beaks and fangs.

These creatures lived relatively soon before the worst mass extinction event in history, the Dead Sea, which occurred about 252 million years ago and wiped out much of life on Earth.

The specimen, known as the Elgin Marvel, is among the best preserved of a series of fossils collected near Elgin in northeast Scotland. These are collectively called the Elgin Reptiles, even though some of them, such as Gordonia, are more closely related to mammals.

A team of experts led by the University of Edinburgh carried out micro-CT scans – high-resolution 3D images – of a cavity made by the animal in a sandstone rock, before its bones decayed.

Their scans provide a three-dimensional representation of the anatomy of the skull, including details of the brain.

These insights can help understand the animal’s likely behaviors and the biology behind them, providing clues about the evolution of this and other species.

The animal shares many physical characteristics with similar fossils found in China, indicating that dicynodonts were diversifying across the globe shortly before the Great Cataclysmic Dying.

The Elgin reptiles represent the only known example of this type of fossil in Western Europe.

Researchers hope that the increasing use of micro-CT scanning as a tool to examine fossils in detail, combined with a trend toward open data sharing, will provide opportunities to add to the body of knowledge in the discipline.

Hady George, now from the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, who led the study, said: “The Elgin Marvel is a fascinating fossil of an ancient mammalian relative that is among the best preserved of the renowned Elgin reptiles world.

“Most of these famous fossils were found over a century ago, and only now are new technologies allowing us to finally reveal them in detail and glean valuable information on their skull and brain anatomy, as well as their genealogy.”

Professor Steve Brusatte, professor of palaeontology and evolution at the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh, lead researcher on the study, said: “As hard as it is to imagine, around 250 million years ago Scotland was a desert covered in sand dunes. and primitive cousins ​​of mammals, such as Gordonia, held sway in this world. By studying them, we can learn about some of the early phases of our own evolution.”

The study was carried out in collaboration with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the University of Birmingham and the Hunterian Museum and was supported by the Royal Commission on the 1851 Exhibition, the Swedish Research Council and the European Research Council.

Paper:

“Micro-CT data reveal new insights into the craniomandibular and neuroanatomy of the dicynodont Gordonia (Therapsida: Anomodontia) from the Late Permian of Scotland”, by H George et al. in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.