PrehiScotInktoberfest Day 20: Ribbo

Today's beastie is as-yet officially unnamed, but affectionately known as "Ribbo." Ribbo is another tetrapod from the fabled Romer's Gap, that mysterious epoch of prehistory that has an anomalous dearth of tetrapod fossils. 

It's difficult to convey how weird that is. 




Now, there are plenty of geological periods that aren't great for fossil preservation: the global environment, the animals' fragile bodies, or geological activity means that for every animal fossilised, there are *billions* which were not. There are periods where there just isn't that much life at all in one are or another. And there are periods, like the end of the Permian, where some incredible catastrophe has wiped out huge amounts of life. Romer's Gap is none of those: there is an abundance of other lifeform fossils - fish, arthropods, plants, fungi, and more. For some reason, tetrapods just seem to disappear for tens of millions of years, only to return as if nothing happened. Only Scotland and, funnily enough, Nova Scotia bear tetrapod remains from this period.

Ribbo is the first of at least six new species from Romer's Gap discovered in Scotland since 2012. These species are particularly important, as they offer insight as to how tetrapods made the journey from aquatic & amphibious lifestyles to fully terrestrial ones. Ribbo's name is a reference to its prominent & developed ribs - strong evidence that it could breath efficiently enough to spend more time on land than its predecessors.

"GUYS

GUYS

HOY GUYS

LOOK AT ME

GUYS

GUYS

GUYS LOOK

I'M WALKING OVER ROMER'S GAP! AAAAAHAHA AMMA PURE GENIUS"