Hylonomus, the first reptile
A twenty-centimetre lizard-like animal found inside a fossil tree stump is the oldest amniote skeleton.
- When
- Known to
- ± 3 million years
- Era
- Carboniferous, Paleozoic
Hylonomus lyelli, about 312 million years old, was discovered in the hollow stumps of lycopsid trees at Joggins, Nova Scotia — animals apparently fell in and were trapped. Small, insectivorous and fully terrestrial, it remains the earliest undisputed amniote body fossil, though the Australian trackways may push the group's origin considerably earlier.