Pennsylvania: Home to all your breaking animal burrow news!
Move over, Punxsutawney Phil. There’s a new local creature striking the Keystone State’s fancy, one that was born 350 million years ago.
Researchers at Kutztown University have discovered a fossilized burrow in rocks exposed by road cuts, that they believe is the oldest ever discovered of a four-legged creature. Though the hole had long since been filled in by stone, the fossil shows a telltale opening that seemed to indicate that it had been dug. As paleontologist Ed Simpson explained:
It’s very difficult to get an erosive feature like this. [...] The only thing that comes close is a pothole, which is formed in a river by rocks, but the hole was too deep and the upward arc of the tunnel can’t be easily explained as a pothole.
More on TIME.com: The top 10 new species of 2009
Because of the hole’s age and shape, the team speculated that it was dug by an early Pennsylvanian who was probably a reptile or amphibian with four legs, a tail and a spine. Could it still be walking the earth today? We don’t know, but if it is, that spine part means that it’s probably not hanging out in Philadelphia. (via Discovery)
