Tritylodonts, mid-sized mammal-related herbivores, roamed the area’s deserts 200m years ago
Scientists have discovered an “extremely rare” set of fossils at Lake Powell that the National Park Service is calling one of the most important vertebrate discoveries in the US this year.The findings, revealed this week, include skulls and teeth from dozens of mid-sized, mammal-related herbivores called tritylodonts that once roamed the region’s vast desert. The bones lay hidden in the sandstone walls of the reservoir for roughly 180m years before a lucky discovery in March.
The climate crisis is making the area even drier, and water levels at the reservoir are expected to keep sinking. But this year, the Colorado River that feeds into Lake Powell was given a reprieve when snowmelt from a wet winter surged into the system. After spotting the fossils, scientists had to scramble to recover them, with just a 120-day window before the snowmelt again submerged the site.
Scientists will be combing through the hundreds of pounds of fossil-containing rock retrieved from this site for years, studying the puzzle pieces that could showcase how some animals survived conditions that caused others to perish.
But there’s lots more to learn about them, Milner said. He told reporters that this was one of the biggest finds of his career, and could be the start of far more discoveries. “We’ve only just really started breaking the surface.”
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