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Petrified Forest National Park Curates New Species In Museum

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By NPT Staff - November 15th, 2020
A look inside the holotype cabinet in the Petrified Forest National Park museum collections/NPS

A look inside the holotype cabinet in the Petrified Forest National Park museum collections/NPS

Museum staff at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona has been busy taking care of some exciting new paleontological discoveries.

More than 4,000 fossil specimens were cataloged this year, including 3 new holotypes. Holotypes are the “original” fossils of a new animal or plant that become the example that all similar fossils are compared with. Paleontologists come from around the world to access the holotypes preserved in the Petrified Forest museum collection. Without holotypes, scientists would never know if they found something new or just another example of a known species. 

These holotypes are a new species of trilophosaur, (Trilophosaurus phasmalophos, a lizard-like herbivorous archosaur), a drepanosaur (Skybalonyx skapter, a digging reptile with a prehensile tail), and a cynodont (Kataigidodon venetus, a distant relative of mammals). All were discovered in the park this year. 

The collections staff operates the demonstration fossil lab, where visitors can see fossils being cleaned and interact with park paleontologists, as well as curates archaeological (in consultation with tribes) and biological materials. To learn more about the work being done in the Petrified Forest museum collection, check out this collections tour video created for last month’s National Fossil Day.

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