Level 1 - Absolute Beginner
Scientists found a new animal from long ago. It was a crocodile. It lived about 45 million years ago.
The bones were in the rocks of the Great Sphinx in Egypt. People cut those rocks to build the Sphinx. The crocodile skull is in the same rock.
The skull is missing the tip of its nose. The Sphinx is missing its nose too. The scientists thought this was funny.
They named the crocodile Herugavialis cairensis. The name comes from Heru, an old Egyptian god.
- scientist
- A person who studies nature.
- crocodile
- A big animal with a long mouth and sharp teeth.
- million
- A very big number: 1,000,000.
- rock
- A hard thing from the ground.
- skull
- The bones of the head.
- tip
- The very end of something.
- god
- A being that people pray to.
- Egypt
- A country in Africa.
Level 2 - Elementary
Scientists have described a new kind of crocodile. They found it in the same limestone that people used to build the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. The animal lived about 45 million years ago.
The fossils were collected in the 1920s. Back then, experts thought they belonged to a living group called Tomistoma, or false gharial. New CT scans looked inside the skull and showed many differences.
The team named the crocodile Herugavialis cairensis. Heru is an ancient Egyptian god who may have inspired the Sphinx. The study came out on October 7 in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
There is also a fun detail. The skull is missing the tip of its snout, just like the Sphinx has lost its nose. Scientists say this is only a coincidence.
- limestone
- A pale rock made from the remains of sea life.
- fossil
- The remains of a very old animal or plant.
- collect
- To gather things in one place.
- CT scan
- A machine picture that shows the inside of something.
- snout
- The long nose and mouth of an animal.
- ancient
- Very, very old.
- journal
- A magazine where scientists share their work.
- coincidence
- When two things happen together by chance.
Level 3 - Intermediate
Palaeontologists have identified a previously unknown crocodile in the very limestone that was carved into the Great Sphinx of Giza. Named Herugavialis cairensis, the animal lived roughly 45 million years ago and belonged to the gavial family, whose long-snouted relatives survive today as the endangered gharial and false gharial. The study appeared in Royal Society Open Science on October 7.
The fossils were gathered in the 1920s and were long assigned to Tomistoma, the genus of the living false gharial, because the two looked so similar. Researchers re-examined them with CT scanning, which revealed anatomical details hidden inside the skull and showed that the Egyptian specimens were distinct enough to deserve their own genus and species.
The project was led by Paul Burke of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm and co-led by Philip Mannion, a professor of palaeobiology at University College London. Mannion explained that the team chose the name Heru after the Egyptian deity who may have inspired the monument.
What caught the public imagination is a coincidence: the skull lacks the tip of its snout, much as the Sphinx has lost its nose. Scientists stress that the resemblance is chance rather than meaning, but the find is a reminder that old museum collections can still hold surprises when examined with modern tools.
- palaeontologist
- A scientist who studies fossils.
- previously
- Before now.
- genus
- A group of closely related species.
- specimen
- A sample of an animal or plant used for study.
- anatomical
- Relating to the structure of a body.
- deity
- A god or goddess.
- resemblance
- A likeness between two things.
- monument
- A large structure built to honor something.
Level 4 - Advanced
The limestone that sculptors carved into the Great Sphinx of Giza has yielded an unexpected secondary figure: a previously unrecognised crocodile. Palaeontologists have named it Herugavialis cairensis, a long-snouted gavial that lived about 45 million years ago in the shallow seas that once covered what is now Egypt. The description was published on October 7 in Royal Society Open Science.
The material is not new to science, only to correct classification. The fossils were collected in the 1920s and filed under Tomistoma, the genus of the modern false gharial, on the strength of superficial similarity. CT scanning has now exposed internal features of the skull that sever that link and justify an entirely separate genus.
Paul Burke, of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, led the analysis alongside Philip Mannion, professor of palaeobiology at University College London. Mannion said the team named the animal after Heru, the Egyptian god who was possibly the inspiration for the monument, a nod to the geological coincidence that ties the creature to the Sphinx.
Then there is the whimsical symmetry that has made the story travel. The skull lacks the tip of its snout, an echo of the Sphinx's famously missing nose. Researchers treat the parallel as pure happenstance, yet it underlines a serious point: museum drawers hold many specimens whose true identity will only emerge when new imaging methods are brought to bear.
- unrecognised
- Not previously identified.
- shallow
- Not deep.
- classification
- The sorting of living things into groups.
- superficial
- Based only on outward appearance.
- sever
- To cut or break a connection.
- whimsical
- Playfully unusual.
- happenstance
- A chance event.
- bring to bear
- To apply something to a problem.
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