Metoposaur Genesis Supreme

Metoposaur Genesis Supreme. Petrified Forest. , Just like visiting a grocery store, park paleontologists have a “wish list” of fossils that they would like to find. Petrified Forest's wish list included a bonebed of metoposaurid amphibians, the large, flat-headed amphibians that were one of the dominant freshwater predators of the Late Triassic. Park paleontologists and student interns were surveying an area near Blue Mesa as part of a 2017 paleontological inventory of new lands. While hiking up and down badland hills, searching for topography for fossil bones eroding out of the sandstone and mudstone, one intern spotted it – the wish list item – a layer of rock extending for many feet with metoposaur bones almost pouring out. , The rest of that summer, as well as parts of the summers of 2020 and 2022, were spent jackhammering off the hard sandstone on top of the bonebed and carefully collecting the metoposaur bones with hand tools, glues and plaster bandages. Named after a brand of recreational vehicle that the crew saw on the park road on the day of discovery, we now know that the site called Metoposaur Genesis Supreme is not only full of metoposaurs; it also preserves the thin and fragile bones of the freshwater fishes that swam alongside and were likely eaten by metoposaurs. These fossils included hard-scaled ray-finned fish and a lobe-finned fish known as a coelacanth. , Captions (left to right) , . 1:2 scale cast of Metoposaur skull. , . Displayed are tools used by park paleontologists, including an Estwing hammer and rock chisel, as well as field notes taken during the dig. , . Park paleontologists working in the quarry, Metoposaur Genesis Supreme.