Jar of ancient ‘goblin’ bones found in Utah museum a truly monstrous discovery, say scientists
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Why ancient ‘goblin’ bones found in Utah are a truly monstrous discovery
Bolg amondol was part of a group of large-bodied, armoured reptiles known as monstersaurs – relatives of today’s Gila monsters. It lived 76 million years ago in what was then a lush, floodplain ecosystem. It would have been roughly the same size as today’s savannah monitor, a large, muscular lizard from Africa. Bolg was named after a goblin prince in The Hobbit, while ‘amondol’ means ‘mound’ or ‘head’ – a nod to the bony, helmet-like armour on its skull. It was found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a vast and rugged landscape in southern Utah, USA. It is part of the Kaiparowits Formation, a fossil-rich layer of rock within the National Monument. The fossil record of large lizards is patchy, so Bolg’s discovery is an important piece of the puzzle to understand how these lizards evolved and spread across ancient continents.
It wasn’t until a recent collections survey at the museum that the bones re-emerged, and palaeontologists realised they had been hiding a big secret: they belonged to a giant goblin-like lizard that had never been documented before.
Named Bolg amondol, this newly described lizard was part of a group of large-bodied, armoured reptiles known as monstersaurs – relatives of today’s Gila monsters.
About the size of a raccoon, Bolg amondol was one of several predatory lizards thriving around 76 million years ago in what was then a lush, floodplain ecosystem.
The discovery is not just exciting for its strange appearance; it also suggests that a much greater diversity of large lizards lived alongside dinosaurs in North America’s Late Cretaceous period than previously believed.
Researchers from the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Natural History Museum of Utah led the study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Identified bones belonging to Bolg amondol. They are not much to look at, but they are jam-packed with valuable information on the anatomy and lifestyle of Bolg amondol. Credit: Natural History Museum of Utah/Bureau of Land Management
Finding a goblin
“I opened this jar of bones labelled ‘lizard’ at the Natural History Museum of Utah, and was like, oh wow, there’s a fragmentary skeleton here,” says lead author Hank Woolley, who stumbled across the remains while studying the museum collections.
Woolley quickly recognised the importance of the find. Large lizards from the Kaiparowits Formation – a fossil-rich layer of rock within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument – are rare and not well understood. Yet, over the past 25 years, this area has been yielding some of the most spectacular dinosaur-dominated records in North America.
Where did the name come from?
The lizard’s name, Bolg amondol, was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings fantasy world. ‘Bolg’ refers to a goblin prince in The Hobbit, while ‘amondol’ combines Tolkien’s Sindarin Elvish words ‘Amon’ (meaning ‘mound’) and ‘dol’ (‘head’) – a nod to the bony, helmet-like armour on its skull.
“Bolg is a great sounding name,” says Woolley. “I think of these lizards as goblin-like, especially looking at their skulls.”
What was Bolg amondol?
Bolg’s impressive headgear is just one of several physical traits that place the species in the monstersauria clade – a group known for their spiny teeth and tough, bumpy skin.
Though monstersaurs have been around for nearly 100 million years, their fossil record is patchy, says Woolley. That makes Bolg’s discovery an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding how these lizards evolved and spread across ancient continents.
Measuring up to a metre in length, Bolg would have been a fearsome sight – perhaps hunting small mammals, insects or even baby dinosaurs. It would have been roughly the same size as today’s savannah monitor, a large, muscular lizard from Africa, explains Woolley. “So, by modern lizard standards they’re a very large animal – something that you wouldn’t want to mess around with.”
Size comparison of the holotype specimen of Bolg amondol (left) and a modern Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum, right). Gold: preserved skeletal elements. Light grey: reconstructed elements based on preserved material. Dark gray: missing skeletal elements. Credit: Natural History Museum of Utah/Bureau of Land Management
Why is the discovery important?
Fossils of Bolg include parts of the skull, limbs, vertebrae and bony armour – enough for researchers to compare it to other known lizards and determine its evolutionary relationships. These remains also help paint a clearer picture of the environment it lived in: a diverse and productive sub-tropical floodplain that supported a variety of predators.
“Discovering a new species of lizard that is an ancestor of modern Gila monsters is pretty cool,” says co-author Randy Irmis, curator of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah, “but what’s particularly exciting is what it tells us about the unique 76-million-year-old ecosystem it lived in.
“The fact that Bolg co-existed with several other large lizard species indicates that this was a stable and productive ecosystem where these animals were taking advantage of a wide variety of prey and different micro-habitats.”
Another remarkable aspect of the find is that it came from fossils that had been sitting in museum storage since 2005. The significance of the bones went unnoticed until Woolley, an expert in lizard evolution, took a closer look. This highlights the potential for further discoveries hiding in museum drawers, says Irmis.
“Although we knew the specimen was significant when it was discovered back in 2005, it took a specialist in lizard evolution like Hank to truly recognise its scientific importance.”
The Kaiparowits Formation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument – the Sedimentary rocks where Bolg was discovered. Credit: Getty
Bolg’s closest known relative comes from Asia’s Gobi Desert, showing that not just dinosaurs, but also smaller reptiles, moved between continents during the Late Cretaceous. This suggests different animal groups shared migration routes across the ancient landmass of Laramidia.
Finally, the discovery underlines the immense scientific value of protecting public lands. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has been a goldmine for dinosaur-era discoveries, says co-author Joe Sertich of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
“The exceptional record of big lizards from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument may prove to be a normal part of dinosaur-dominated ecosystems from North America, filling key roles as smaller predators hunting down eggs and small animals in the forests of Laramidia.”
For palaeontologists and fantasy fans alike, Bolg amondol is a fascinating glimpse into a time when goblin-like creatures really did walk the Earth.
Main image: Artistic reconstruction of Bolg amondol, depicted raiding an oviraptorosaur dinosaur nest amidst the lush Kaiparowits Formation habitat. Credit: Cullen Townsend
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New species of armored, monstersaur lizard that lived alongside dinosaurs identified by NHM paleontologists
Bolg amondol was found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. The new species was identified from an associated skeleton of fragmentary bones: tiny pieces of the skull, vertebrae, girdles, limbs, and the bony armor called osteoderms. Bolg represents an evolutionary lineage that sprouted within a group of large-bodied lizards called monstersaurs, the most familiar example being the Gila monsters, which still roam the deserts where Bolg was recovered from. “Mound-Headed Bolg’ would fit right in with the goblins—and it’s revealing quite a bit about monstersaur,” says lead author Dr. Hank Woolley. Other fossils described in the study demonstrate that the ancient tropical tropical forests of southern Utah, USA hosted at least three different types of large predatory lizards. The fossil record is based on single bones and teeth, with most of their fossil record based on their skull and teeth.
“I opened this jar of bones labeled ‘lizard’ at the Natural History Museum of Utah, and was like, oh wow, there’s a fragmentary skeleton here,” says lead author Dr. Hank Woolley from the Dinosaur Institute. “We know very little about large-bodied lizards from the Kaiparowits Formation in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, so I knew this was significant right away.”
A Moniker from Middle-earth
Bolg represents an evolutionary lineage that sprouted within a group of large-bodied lizards called monstersaurs, the most familiar example being the Gila monsters, which still roam the deserts where Bolg was recovered from. Woolley knew that a new species of monstersaur called for an appropriate name from an iconic monster creator: J.R.R. Tolkien. “Bolg is a great sounding name. It’s a goblin prince from The Hobbit, and I think of these lizards as goblin-like, especially looking at their skulls,” says Woolley. He used the fictional language Sindarin—created by Tolkien for his elves—to craft the species epithet. “Amon” means “mound”, and “dol” means “head” in the Elvish language, a reference to the mound-like osteoderms found on Bolg’s and other monstersaur skulls. “Mound-Headed Bolg” would fit right in with the goblins—and it’s revealing quite a bit about monstersaurs.”
Hidden Gems in Collection Drawers
“Bolg is a great example of the importance of natural history museum collections,” says co-author Dr. Randy Irmis from the University of Utah. “Although we knew the specimen was significant when it was discovered back in 2005, it took a specialist in lizard evolution like Hank to truly recognize its scientific importance, and take on the task of researching and scientifically describing this new species.”
The new species was identified from an associated skeleton of fragmentary bones: tiny pieces of the skull, vertebrae, girdles, limbs, and the bony armor called osteoderms.
“What’s really interesting about this holotype specimen of Bolg is that it’s fragmentary, yes, but we have a broad sample of the skeleton preserved,” Woolley says. “There’s no overlapping bones—there’s not two left hip bones or anything like that. So we can be confident that these remains likely belonged to a single individual.”
Most of the fossil lizards from the Age of Dinosaurs are even more fragmented—often just single isolated bones or teeth—so despite their fragmentary nature, the parts of Bolg’s skeleton that survived contain a stunning amount of information.
“That means more characteristics are available for us to assess and compare to similar-looking lizards. Importantly, we can use those characteristics to understand this animal’s evolutionary relationships and test hypotheses about where it fits on the lizard tree of life,” says Woolley.
Other fossils described in the study, including remarkably armored skull bones, demonstrate that the ancient, seasonally tropical forests of what is now southern Utah, USA hosted at least three different types of large, predatory lizards. “Even though these lizards were large, their skeletons are quite rare, with most of their fossil record based on single bones and teeth,” says co-author Dr. Joe Sertich from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Colorado State University. “The exceptional record of big lizards from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument may prove to be a normal part of dinosaur-dominated ecosystems from North America, filling key roles as smaller predators hunting down eggs and small animals in the forests of Laramidia.”
Stairway to Monstersaurs
The Monstersauria are characterized by their large size and distinctive features like pitted, polygonal armor attached to their skulls and sharp, spire-like teeth. They have a roughly 100 million-year history, but their fossil record is largely incomplete, making the discovery of Bolg a big deal for understanding these charismatic lizards, and Bolg would have been a bit of a monster to our eyes.
“Three feet tip to tail, maybe even bigger than that, depending on the length of the tail and torso,” says Woolley. “So by modern lizard standards, a very large animal, similar in size to a Savannah monitor lizard; something that you wouldn’t want to mess around with.”
The identification of a new species of monstersaur highlights the likelihood that there were many more kinds of big lizards in the Late Cretaceous. Additionally, this find shows that unexplored diversity is waiting to be dug up in the field and in paleontology collections.
Bolg’s closest known relative hails from the other side of the planet in the Gobi Desert of Asia. While dinosaurs have long been known to have traveled between the once connected continents during the Late Cretaceous Period, the discovery of Bolg reveals that smaller animals also made the trek, suggesting there were common patterns of biogeography across terrestrial vertebrates during this time.
Dr. Woolley began this research as a PhD student at the Dinosaur Institute and has continued it as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the department, underscoring the value of funding scientific research and the unique role the Dinosaur Institute plays as a source of mentorship for young paleontologists.
“The Natural History Museum and Dinosaur Institute has been proud to lead the way in empowering early career scientists,” says Dr. Nathan Smith, co-author and Gretchen Augustyn Director & Curator of the Dinosaur Institute. In addition to Dr. Woolley, co-author Dr. Keegan Melstrom (now an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Oklahoma), was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Dinosaur Institute. “The result of that investment and continued growth of programs like the Dinosaur Institute Fellowship Fund is groundbreaking paleontological research and new discoveries that highlight the value of museum collections and expand our knowledge of Earth history.”
Field collection of the specimens described in this study was conducted under paleontological permits issued by the Bureau of Land Management. This study was funded by the Bureau of Land Management, National Science Foundation award 2205564, the NHMLAC Dinosaur Institute, and the University of Utah.
The rocks where Bolg was discovered, the Kaiparowits Formation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, have emerged as a paleontological hotspot over the past 25 years, producing one of the most astounding dinosaur-dominated records anywhere in North America with dozens of new species and critical insights into the past. Discoveries like this underscore the importance of protecting public lands in the western USA for science and research.
Source: https://www.discoverwildlife.com/prehistoric-life/bolg-amondol-utah