A unique fossil of an ancient Karoo crocodile was lost to science after the vehicle in which it was being transported, was stolen in Bloemfontein.
The fossilised skull part belonged to the National Museum in Bloemfontein. It was the only known fossil of its species and the so-called holotype on which the name and first description of the ancient amphibian — called Jammerbergia Mucidiops — was based, Doctor Ross Damiani said on Tuesday.
Damiani, an Australian paleonthologist doing contract research for the University of the Witwatersrand, was to return the fossil he had borrowed from the National Museum when it was stolen a few weeks ago together with the Toyota Venture in which he had
transported it to Bloemfontein.
The vehicle belonged to Wits University and was parked in front of the guest house Damiani was staying in while attending a conference of the Palaeontological Society of South Africa.
It was stolen on the first night of his Bloemfontein visit, together with two other boxes of fossils which were to be returned to the South African Museum in Cape Town and the Albany Museum in Grahamstown.
Damiani said on Tuesday the theft of the Jammerbergia fossil was a huge loss to paleonthology as it was the only known fossil of its genus and species in the world.
He discovered it a while ago in the collections of the National Museum. The name — translated as ”mouldy face from Jammerberg” — was based on a description of the fossil, found in 1927 at Jammerberg near Wepener in the southern Free State by one Van Hoepen, who was the director of the National Museum at the time.
Damiani had borrowed the fossil while writing a research paper on it, describing the new genus and species. The article, which he finalised, was due to appear in a scientific journal in March 2003.
Damiani said Jammerbergia Mucidiops was an ancient relative of modern amphibians, living 245- to 250-million years ago in the swampy environment which was then the Karoo landscape. It would have looked like a crocodile several metres in length.
Although Damiani will now look for other specimens of the new species, the important holotype fossil seems to be lost forever.
It was even possible that the car thieves realised the value of the fossils and sold them on the black market, Damiani said. – Sapa