{"id":115141,"date":"2011-07-21T12:22:30","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T07:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=115141"},"modified":"2011-07-21T12:22:30","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T07:22:30","slug":"first-pregnant-lizard-fossil-found-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/07\/21\/first-pregnant-lizard-fossil-found-in-china.html","title":{"rendered":"First Pregnant Lizard Fossil Found in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A 120-million-year-old fossil is the oldest pregnant lizard ever discovered, according to scientists, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/nature\/14200255\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">reports BBC Nature<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The fossil, found in China, is a very complete 30cm (12in) lizard with more than a dozen embryos in its body.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from University College London, who studied the fossil, say it was just days from giving birth when it died and was buried during the Cretaceous period.<\/p>\n<p>The fossil is especially interesting to scientists because it is a reptile that produced live young rather than laying eggs.<\/p>\n<p>Only 20% of living lizards and snakes produce live young, and this shows it is an ancient, if unusual, trait.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t think much of the fossil when I first saw it,&#8221; said Prof Susan Evans, joint lead author of the paper, from University College London.<\/p>\n<p>But when her colleague, Yuan Wang, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, examined the fossil he spotted the tiny remains of at least 15 almost fully developed embryos inside it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sure enough, when I examined it under the microscope, I could see all these little babies,&#8221; Prof Evans recalled.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This specimen is the oldest pregnant lizard we have seen,&#8221; said Prof Evans.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 120-million-year-old fossil is the oldest pregnant lizard ever discovered, according to scientists&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[30058,30057,30056],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}