New species of ancient reptile found at Tytherington quarry named after Harry Potter character

FOSSILS found in a Tytherington quarry have been identified by a student at the University of Bristol as a new reptile species with self-sharpening blade-like teeth that lived 205 million years ago. Research by Catherine Klein, an undergraduate in Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, shows that fossils from the previously unstudied Woodleaze Quarry belong to a new species of the ‘Gloucester lizard’ Clevosaurus (named in 1939 after Clevum, the Latin name for Gloucester). Part of the name chosen for the new species – Clevosaurus sectumsemper – takes inspiration from a spell cast in the Harry Potter books. In the Late Triassic, the hills of the South West of the UK formed an archipelago that was inhabited by small dinosaurs. The limestone quarries of the region have many caves or fissures containing sediments filled with the bones of abundant small reptile species that give a unique insight into the animals that scuttled at the feet of the dinosaurs.READ MORE -http://www.gazetteseries.co.uk/news/13315544.New_species_of_ancient_reptile_found_at_Tytherington_quarry_named_after_Harry_Potter_character/