A new study co-authored by Andrej Čerňanský rewrites a part of Europe’s evolutionary history.
It’s a name every expert who studies prehistoric reptiles and amphibians has known since university. The extinct genus Plesiolacerta is an iconic and highly significant component of the European Palaeogene, the geological period that lasted from 66 to 23 million years ago.
Slovak palaeoherpetologist Andrej Čerňanský from Comenius University in Bratislava is certainly one of those experts. Now, together with Georgios Georgalis, a colleague from the Polish Academy of Sciences, he has demonstrated that the genus never actually existed.
Although evidence pointing to this conclusion had been mounting for quite some time, seemingly no one had dared to take the final step and present a comprehensive argument supported by robust and compelling evidence. Until now.
“A colleague recently messaged me, congratulated me on our paper and sighed he would miss Plesiolacerta. I know exactly what he meant,” Čerňanský tells The Slovak Spectator.
