Running on two legs--the oldest bipedal reptile

Some reptiles have been running for their lives (and to catch prey) ever since they mastered the technique of rising up on their hind two legs and scooting away faster than their lumbering four-footed neighbors.

The oldest bipedal reptile ever discovered in the fossil record is a 290million-year-old skeleton found in central Germany in 1993, when curator David Berman of vertebrate paleontology and his colleagues excavated an abandoned, fossil-rich stone quarry. Berman called it Eudibamus cursoris because it is the "original" (Greek eu-), used "two legs" (Greek-dibamous), and a "runner" (Latin-cursoris). He and his fellow scientists reported their find in the November 3, 2000 issue of the journal Science, and thus added to the list of the museum's distinguished research into the earliest forms of animal life.

The skeleton of the roughly 30-centimeter-- long Eudibamus shows that it had an upright stance just like the dinosaurs that followed 60-70 million years later. Its long feet (60% of the trunk length) and hind limbs (134% of trunk length) made it a fast runner, and its teeth show that it was a plant-eater, or herbivore.

The years between a scientific discovery such as this and its publication for the scientific community are spent analyzing and verifying the evidence. Teamwork is typical in paleontology, and Berman and his fellow scientists have been excavating the Bromacker site since 1993. The team includes Stuart Sumida, a biologist from California State University; Thomas Martens, a paleontologist with the Museum der natur Gotha near the quarry in Germany; Robert Reisz, a biologist, and Diane Scott, preparator and illustrator-both from the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Ontario; and Amy Henrici, scientific preparator with Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Martens actually studied the vertebrate paleontology collection in Pittsburgh in 1993 under the museum's well-known International Visiting Scientist program. For many years this program created a world-wide network of field and research associates who had professional ties to the museum as a scientific resource.