Tagged: Animals/Wildlife

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Linda Wertheimer.

The Doors' front man, Jim Morrison, was nicknamed The Lizard King. This week researchers from the University of Iowa identified a new species of reptilian royalty, the six-foot long Barbaturex morrisoni. Though the species is named after the 20th century rock star, it lived in the jungles of Southeast Asia 40 million years ago, a gentle creature who ate only plants.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

The origin of the first primates — the group that includes humans, apes and monkeys — is thought to lie in the deep past, about 55 million years ago.

Fossils from that period are rare. But now, there's an exciting new one. It's called Archicebus achilles, roughly meaning "beginning long-tailed monkey." Actually, this creature lived before the monkeys we know of today, a mere 10 million years after the dinosaurs died out.

A Colorado Department of Transportation project plans to build wildlife overpasses and underpasses to help reduce vehicle and wildlife collisions.