A Scottish fossil is helping scientists fill the gaps in the lizard family tree

While lizards and dinosaurs trotted the Earth together, lizards were the one of the newer animals on the block during the Middle Jurassic period. Scientists are still unraveling their unique history. Now, roughly 166 million years later, a nearly-complete fossil of a lizard skeleton is helping scientists fill in some of those evolutionary gaps.

The specimen was discovered on Scotland’s Isle of Skye and is called Bellairsia gracilis. Bellairsia was a tiny lizard ancestor and was only about two inches long. The “exceptional” new fossil is described in a study published…