This Ancient Reptile Is Not a Lizard. Don’t Call It a Lizard
150 million years ago, a prehistoric reptile unlike modern lizards slinked around what is now Wyoming. An ancient rhynchocephalian, the insect-eating animal’s discovery could shed light on the persistence of its living relative, the tuatara.The reptile is named Opisthiamimus gregori. It looks like a lizard, but like New Zealand’s tuatara, it is not one. Lizards are squamates, an order of reptiles that includes snakes and worm lizards. Rhynchocephalians are a distinct group that diverged from lizards in the Triassic…