A new species of Egernia described

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A new species of social skink (genus Egernia), which consists of both modern and extinct members, has been described from Miocene-age skull and limb remains found in the Riversleigh fossil site in Queensland, Australia. The new species has been given the new species name E. gillespieae, with the new species name originating from Dr. Anna Gillespie, who played an important role in the preparation of this specimen and several other fossils from this same area. This skink was about 25 cm long and, unlike any of its living relatives, was equipped with robust crushing jaws filled with rounded crushing teeth. Due to its similar appearance to both the modern social skinks and the modern blue-tongued skinks, the new species suggests that the ancestors of blue-tongued skinks split from the social skinks as early as 25 million years ago, giving a better picture of the evolution of this lizard group. Here is an image of the skull remains used to describe the new species and a link to the paper describing it.



Paper (abstract only): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2019.1577873