Monitor lizards also lived in Switzerland 17 million years ago. Basel researchers accidentally discovered fossils of this giant lizard and thus provided the first evidence of the existence of monitor lizards in Switzerland.
The fossils come from Langnau im Emmental (BE), the Natural History Museum Basel announced on Monday. Paleontologist Bastien Mennecart discovered two incomplete teeth among the hundreds of fossil bones and teeth in the Basel Museum’s paleontological vertebrate collection.
In cooperation with an international team of researchers from Poland, Germany and Switzerland, he showed that the distinctive teeth on the teeth and their interior correspond to typical features of monitor lizards. These results were published in the Swiss Journal of Geoscience.
![The paleontologist Bastien Mennecar found the fossilized teeth of a monitor lizard near Langnau (BE). [Bastien Mennercart - Musée d'histoire naturelle de Bâle]](https://www.spamchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Fossils-found-in-the-Emmental-show-that-monitor-lizards-once.image.jpeg "The paleontologist Bastien Mennecar found the fossilized teeth of a monitor lizard near Langnau (BE). [Bastien Mennercart - Musée d'histoire naturelle de Bâle]")
The paleontologist Bastien Mennecar found the fossilized teeth of a monitor lizard near Langnau (BE). [Bastien Mennercart – Musée d’histoire naturelle de Bâle]
Up to three meters long
At 17 million years old, the fossil teeth are among the oldest evidence of the existence of the giant varanus lizard in Europe. At that time it was 5 to 10 degrees warmer in Switzerland than today, explains the Basel museum. The last known monitor lizards in Europe lived in Greece less than a million years ago.
Today monitor lizards are found in Africa, Australia and Asia. With a length of up to three meters, they are among the largest land iguanas in the world.
ats/friend