Prehistoric amphibian ancestor named after Kermit the Frog
One crawled across the rain-soaked soil of what is now Texas more than 270 million years ago, possibly feasting on fast-moving insects. The other endeared himself to millions as the banjo-playing wandering newscaster and Miss Piggy’s reluctant love interest known as Kermit the Frog.
Now they share a name.
On Thursday, scientists announced that they had named a newly identified ancient ancestor of today’s amphibians Kermitops gratus, in honor of Kermit the Frog.
Although it wasn’t able to sing “Rainbow Connection” or deliver the news, the salamander-like species appeared to bear a striking resemblance to the beloved Muppet, said Calvin So, a Ph.D. student at George Washington University’s department of biological sciences, who helped name it.
The combination of bones in the eye socket gave him the appearance of “bug eyes,” much like Kermit’s, and his slightly crushed, three-inch-long fossilized skull appeared to have “a crooked smile,” reminiscent of Kermit’s shy grin, Mx . So said.
“It really seemed to us like Kermit was smiling at us,” said Mx. So the lead author of a paper describing the new species, published Thursday in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. The name combines ‘Kermit’ with the Greek suffix ‘-ops’, meaning face.
The fossilized skull was unearthed in 1984 near Lake Kemp in Texas, MX. So said. It was in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington until 2021, when one of Mx. Co-authors Arjan Mann and a few other paleontologists noticed it and recognized that it might be a new species, Mx. So said.
MX. Put it this way, its snout was longer than the back of its skull, which was very different from other fossil amphibians of its kind. The shape may have made the species particularly adept at catching fast-moving insects for food, Mx. So said.
“It increases our knowledge of the diversity of amphibians at that time,” they said. And the name, Mx. That said, people might become interested in prehistoric creatures other than dinosaurs.
“I wanted to draw attention and change the way people interact with science and fossils,” says Mx. So said. “It would be really great if many more people actually joined the research into the origins of amphibians, because this is an area of the tree of life that has not been very well studied.”
The species was just the latest scientific discovery to emerge from obscurity and bear a famous name.
Last year, scientists at a German research institute who discovered that certain bacterial compounds kill fungi named them keanumycins, in honor of actor Keanu Reeves in his starring role in the thriller franchise “John Wick.”
Scientists have named insects after Arnold Schwarzenegger and RuPaul, while one species of dinosaur was named Dracorex hogwartsia, or the dragon king of Hogwarts, in honor of the Hogwarts school from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. according to the Natural History Museum in London.
Muppets have also served as inspiration. A trilobite is named after the grumpy duo of Statler and Waldorfand a tube-dwelling spider was named in honor of Gonzo, the museum said.
Despite MX. That includes enthusiasm for the new species, saying they weren’t always big fans of the Muppets. “Personally,” Mx So said, “I found some of the Muppets a little creepy.”