Paleontologists using microcomputed tomography to examine ancient fossils from sites across Poland found that the legless creatures known as Pseudopus pannonicus, which slithered across the country between 15 and 2 million years ago, could have been over 2 meters long.

Dr. Georgios Georgalis from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków said: “The contemporary species reaches a total length of over 130 cm and is the largest lizard currently inhabiting Europe.

“However, the Pannonian yellow-toed lizard was much larger and reached truly impressive sizes, exceeding 2 meters in length.”

A member of the Anguidae lizard family and a close relative of the current Balkan yellow-footed lizard, the Pannonian yellow-footed lizard became completely extinct in the early Pleistocene (about 2 million years ago), a time coinciding with a colder climate and major environmental and climatic changes.

But following recent information about its anatomy coming to light, researchers decided to take a closer look at the lizard fossils.

Georgalis said: “We have studied and described a new abundant fossil material of Pseudopus pannonicus from Poland, including several nicely preserved skull elements.

“These new Polish specimens shed important light on our knowledge of this species, revealing previously unknown anatomical features of the skull and vertebrae.

“However, we used new technologies here, in particular microcomputed tomography (μCT), which allowed us to thoroughly examine the fossils and study their internal anatomy. What's more, thanks to this technology, we created high-resolution 3D models of the most important fossil specimens from Poland.

“All this new anatomical and taxonomic information from Polish fossil material will now enable a more precise identification of new Pseudopus pannonicus fossil finds from all over Europe.

“Moreover, the fact that both the oldest and the youngest Pseudopus pannonicus remains come from Poland provides new implications on the origin, but also on the causes of the species' extinction, as well as on the evolution of the emblematic genus Pseudopus [commonly known as the European glass lizard], which remains the largest lizard in Europe to this day.”