It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a giant flying squirrel? Yes, a giant flying squirrel was uncovered at the Gray Fossil Site and Museum. The discovery offers insight into past environments and animal migrations.
Joshua Samuels, associate professor in the Department of Geosciences and head curator of the Gray Fossil Site and Museum, shared the details of the dig.
Excavations are ongoing at the fossil site. The squirrel was discovered while looking for massive elephant-like mastodons. Though only the tooth of the squirrel was found, it was enough to identify the animal.
“The teeth are really distinctive,” said Samuels. “It’s the same genus of animal Myope arista — something that’s known from a lot of different sites in Europe and Asia.”
Samuels shared that the flying squirrel would have been the size of a house cat, weighing around three pounds with light bones that allowed them to glide. He is hopeful that more remains of the squirrel will be found, like the site’s red panda discoveries.
“That’s how the red panda started out,” said Samuel. “Now we have several pretty complete skeletons.”
The discovery suggests that the fossil site was once a pond inside of a dense forest about five million years ago. Today, flying squirrels live in forests across North America, Central America and Asia. Samuels shared that many animals found at site, like red pandas and badgers, are immigrants from Asia.
“A lot of these animals were able to move across the Bering Land Bridge, which is connecting Alaska to Russia,” said Samuels. “Animals and people crossed it many times, and that’s something that about five million years ago allowed these animals to spread here.”
The discovery highlights the significance of the Gray Fossil Site to the ETSU paleontology program. “We’ve been working at the Gray Fossil Site for 25 years, and there’s always new things being discovered,” said Samuels.
This spring, a replica of a mastodon skull will be completed and available for the public to see. The five-year project has taken a while because of the colossal size of the animal. Samuels is currently working with students and faculty to describe the site’s first deer. Exciting new discoveries are always happening at the site, making excavation a possibility for a breakthrough.
“If people keep paying attention to the news, we’ll have new discoveries being put out there in just the next few years,” said Samuels.
