So we often talk about scientific discovery as
this this moment of absolute clarity. You know
you dig a hole you find a bone you slap a Latin
name on it and boom history is written. Yeah.
But the reality is usually messy highly bureaucratic
and sometimes honestly. A little embarrassing.
It really is. I mean, it is rarely as clean as
the textbooks make it seem. Oh, absolutely. Right.
Pileontology is effectively a centuries -long
argument conducted through academic papers. Right.
And today we are doing a deep dive into a specific
argument, or maybe clerical error is the better
phrase. We are looking at a creature from the
Upper Triassic period. A very specific synodont
found in Europe. Exactly. We are basing this
on the scientific records and specific Wikipedia
entry, but... the first thing you notice when
you pull up the source material is the title.
The name of the animal is in quotation marks.
Which, you know, in the strict world of zoological
nomenclature is effectively a giant warning sign.
It's the academic equivalent of an under -construction
banner. Yeah, the creature is, or at least was
intended to be Honey Oblika, but because of a
very rigorous rule about who gets to name what,
this animal is currently stuck in a sort of...
identity crisis it's a ghost in the system it
really is so our mission for this deep dive is
twofold we want to understand how paleontologists
can reconstruct the life of a meat -eating stem
mammal based on almost no evidence right from
just fragments yeah and we also need to figure
out why this specific creature is currently stuck
in scientific limbo with an invalid name Because
beyond the naming drama, which is fascinating
and a little unfortunate, this is a perfect example
of how taxonomy works and how it sometimes fails.
So let's start with the bureaucracy, the air
quotes mystery. The paper describing this animal
was published in 1997 by Pascal Goodfra and Bernard
Battelle. Right. They find these fossils, they
analyze them, and they decide to name the genus
Hania. Where does that name come from? Well,
usually the etymology is pretty straightforward.
They were likely honoring a colleague or a significant
figure in the field named Han. You add the I
-A suffix to Latinize it, and you have your genus
name. Which is standard practice. Very standard.
But then they hit a wall. Or rather, a web. A
web. Yeah. They ran headfirst into the principle
of homonymy. The International Code of Zoological
Nomenclature is incredibly strict. No two animal
genera can have the same name. Ever. Ever. It
doesn't matter if one is a microscopic worm and
the other is a blue whale. If the name is taken,
it's taken. And Hania was taken. Long taken.
Yeah. It turns out Hania had already been assigned
to a genus of spider. Wow. Not recently either.
This spider name had been on the books for a
very long time. See, this is what surprises me.
Godfrey and Battelle are serious researchers.
I get that in 1997 we didn't have instant bugle
searches for this stuff, but surely there was
a central registry. How do you just miss that?
It's actually surprisingly easy, especially in
the pre -digital era. Entomology, the study of
insects and spiders, and vertebrate paleontology
are completely different worlds. Right, different
lanes. Exactly. They publish in different journals.
They attend different conferences. If you don't
physically check the H section of the massive
nomenclature volumes for every single living
kingdom, you might easily miss a spider described
back in the 1800s. So because a spider got there
first, the Triassic dinosaur cousin gets the
boot. Effectively, yes. Because two animals cannot
share the same genus name, the name Hania for
this synodont is occupied. and therefore it's
not valid. Which explains the quotation marks.
Right. It's the scientific community acknowledging,
hey, we know what animal you're talking about,
but we legally cannot call it this. The source
material notes that the authors are aware of
this error and will, quote, doubtless come up
with a new name sometime in the future. Which
is the very polite academic way of saying they'll
get around to it. But it's been almost 30 years.
Is this creature just languishing in a drawer
somewhere with a sticky note on it? In a sense,
yeah. But this happens a lot more often than
you'd think. Revisiting a paper just to issue
a replacement name, a noma novum, just isn't
high priority compared to describing entirely
new discoveries. So Hania remains temporarily
nameless in the official record. Exactly. A creature
without a valid name. Well, let's look at the
creature itself. If we strip away the invalid
label, what are we actually looking at? The findings
are from the strata of Scenic Le Deport in France.
Right. But we aren't talking about a full skeleton
here. Not at all. We are talking about tiny,
isolated teeth, no jaws, no femurs, just the
absolute hardest part of the body surviving the
ages. And this leads us to the description that
really stood out to me in the source material.
It explicitly says, apart from not yet having
a proper name, these teeth look rather boring.
Boring, yes. It's a great line. But boring in
science doesn't mean it's not interesting to
study, right? It usually implies something specific
about the anatomy. Precisely. If a tooth is exciting,
it usually has some wild specialization. Huge
serrations, strange curving roots, really complex
grinding basins. Boring just means it's relatively
simple or generalized. So let's break down what
boring actually looks like anatomically so we
can get a mental image. Okay, picture the crown
that's the part exposed above the gum line. Right.
In this creature, the crown slopes backwards.
It is not a straight vertical spike. So it's
hooking back toward the throat. Exactly. Now
look at the top edge. It has three cusps, or
bumps, which the researchers noted are actually
best seen from above rather than from the side.
Okay, so a three -bumped ridge. Right. You have
the main cusp in the middle, which is the largest.
But the source described the apex of this middle
cusp as somewhat blunt. So it's not a sharp needle
point, more of a rounded mountain peak? Yes.
And flanking that main central peak, you have
two smaller side cusps. The text actually calls
them the main cusp's colleagues. I love that
phrasing, the colleagues. It's very descriptive.
And these colleagues are also very blunt. But
here is the key detail that makes it look boring
or primitive. The cusps... are not well separated
from that main cusp they sort of blend together
exactly in more advanced mammals cusps become
very distinct sharp independent points used for
precise puncturing or grinding here they are
just mashed together into one lumpy mass and
what about the root structure there is no constriction
no narrowing between the crown and the root like
a neck right in your teeth there is a neck in
this fossil the crown just flows directly down
into the root without narrowing at all it's just
a solid continuous pillar so we have a backward
sloping three bumped blunt pillar -like tooth
and this is the aha moment for me because while
they look boring these teeth tell us a very specific
story about function they do they were highly
effective tools what were they doing if they
are so blunt what is their purpose they were
for shearing even if the tips are blunt the edges
and the angle allow the teeth to slice. The analysis
confirms these teeth were effective for cutting
up small portions of prey. So that confirms the
creature was a carnivore. Definitely a carnivore.
Let's place this creature in its broader biological
context then. It's a cynodont. Yes. Which the
source defines as a stem mammal. Let's clarify
that term. Stem mammal doesn't mean it is a mammal,
right? Correct. Think of the mammal family tree.
The crown group includes all living mammals and
their direct ancestors back to their most recent
common ancestor. Stem mammals are the evolutionary
branches leading up to that crown. So they have
some of the traits but not the full package.
Exactly. They might have complex teeth or changes
to the jaw hinge, but they might still lay eggs
or they lack the complex ear bone structure of
modern mammals. And this creature lived during
the Norian to Ratian stages of the upper Triassic.
Which places us roughly 205 to 200 million years
ago. So to summarize where we are at, we are
looking at a tiny, meat -eating ancestor cousin
of mammals running around France millions of
years ago, munching on small prey. Processing
that prey specifically. Which is important. Why
is the processing part important? Because of
metabolism. If you are a cold -blooded reptile,
you can tear off a chunk of meat, swallow it
whole, and just sit on a warm rock for three
days digesting it. But if you're a stem mammal...
You need fuel fast. You might be generating your
own body heat. You can't wait days to digest.
You need to process the food in your mouth, cutting
it up to increase the surface area so your gut
can absorb the energy immediately. So even these
boring teeth represent a huge evolutionary step.
A massive step. It implies an active, high metabolism
predator. Which brings us to the classification
puzzle. And this sounds like it was a major headache
for Godfrey and Bataille. Oh, it was a nightmare
to figure out who this creature was related to.
Because you can't just find a tooth and declare
it a completely new thing without comparing it
to everything else that lived at the same time.
You have to connect the dots. Right. And this
is where the boring nature of the teeth works
against the researchers. If the teeth were highly
specialized, you could easily say, oh, it belongs
to this specific family. Because it would have
a clear signature. Exactly. But because they're
so generalized, they look a little bit like...
a lot of things, but exactly like nothing. The
source lists the lineup of suspects that compared
these teeth to, and I want to go through these
because it really highlights the diversity of
the upper Triassic era. Let's do it. Suspect
number one on the list, the Galosaurids. So Galosaurids
are generally considered forerunners of the Eucenodons.
They are an older model. Did our mystery teeth
match? Not quite. Galosaurids tend to have a
different cusp arrangement. Their teeth often
have a much more distinct main cone, and the
side cusps are more separated. Our fossil was
too blunt to mash together. Okay, suspect number
two, Cynognathus. Now that is a heavy hitter.
Cynognathus was a large, wolf -sized predator.
Massive head, incredibly powerful jaws. But we
are looking at tiny teeth. Yeah. Could our fossil
just be a baby Syngnognathus? That is always
a valid question in paleontology. But Syngnognathus
teeth have a very specific serrated edge, like
a steak knife. They are designed for tearing
large chunks of flesh. Our fossil doesn't have
serrations. It's built for shearing small items,
not ripping large prey. So it's not a baby wolf
beast. Next up, the Cheniquidontids. Now we're
getting closer to the mammalian line. Yeah. Cheniquidontids
were active carnivores. They had very advanced
cheek teeth that were starting to develop complex
occlusion. Occlusion meaning the way the top
and bottom teeth fit together. Exactly. They
interlock perfectly for efficient chewing. Did
our fossil have that? No, it lacked that complexity.
It was too simple. It just didn't have the advanced
wear patterns you would expect to see in a chinequodontid.
All right. What about the trithelodontids? Now,
this group is... Extremely close to mammals.
Some of them are so mammal -like it's actually
hard to draw the line. Did the teeth match? No.
Trithelodontid teeth are often specialized differently.
They sometimes look like modern insectivore teeth
with very sharp, piercing cusps. And our source
explicitly called our fossil's cusps blunt. Right.
Our fossil is blunt. Trithelodontids are usually
sharp and prickly. Which leaves us with the final
suspect. The Dromotherids. These were small shrew
-like creatures, superficially similar to our
fossil because they are also small Triassic carnivores.
But Dromotherids usually have teeth where the
cusps are very well separated, distinct spikes
on a root. And remember, our fossil has that
mashed together look and no constriction at the
root. There were clear differences. So Godfrey
and Battelle go through this entire exhaustive
lineup. It's not a Gellosaurid, not a Cynognathus,
not a Chiniquidontid, not a Trithelidontid, and
not a Dramatherid. It is distinct, but again,
distinct in a generic way. It doesn't possess
a unique smoking gun feature that cleanly links
it to any of those established families. So they
have to make a call. What scientific bucket do
they drop this into? The authors decided to plump
for synodontia in certes aedes. In certes aedes,
which translates to what exactly? Literally,
of uncertain seat or of uncertain placement.
Basically meaning of some kind or other, or we
just aren't sure where this sits. It's the miscellaneous
bin. It is, but I think it's really important
to frame that correctly. People hear in certes
aedes, and they think it means the scientist
failed. But in taxonomy, it's actually a very
honest, crucial label. Why is it crucial? Because
if the researchers had forced it into the cheniquidontid
box just to keep things tidy, they would be muddying
the evolutionary waters. They would be claiming
an animal as part of a lineage when the evidence
just doesn't support it. So it's better to admit
ignorance than to guess wrong. Absolutely. By
marking it in Serticetes, they are flagging it
for future researchers. They are saying, here
is a valid data point that does not fit our current
map of the Triassic. Keep looking. So let's pull
all of this together. We have recapped the journey
of Hania Oblika, a creature known only by a few
blunt, tiny, backwards -looping teeth found in
France. Identified confidently as a small carnivore.
Right, but it is currently stranded without a
valid scientific name because of a 19th century
spider. A truly bizarre twist of bureaucratic
fate. It is. What is your biggest takeaway from
this whole strange case? I think it emphasizes
that... Even boring fossils are crucial pieces
of the puzzle. We tend to focus on the spectacular
finds, the complete skeletons, the massive apex
predators. The museum centerpieces. Exactly.
Yeah. But ecosystems are built on the backs of
millions of these small generalized creatures.
They help map out the true diversity of life
in the upper Triassic. Even if we don't fully
understand their family tree yet, they proved
that the shadows were full of active processing
stem mammals. It's incredible how much narrative
we can pull from something so small. It really
is the magic of the discipline. I want to leave
you with a provocative thought as we wrap up
this deep dive. We spend a lot of time thinking
about what is missing in the fossil record. You
know, the gaps in the rock strata, the bones
that washed away. Physical absences. Right. But
consider how much of our history is defined by
what is missing versus what is actually found.
If a species name can get lost because of a clerical
collision with a spider. And if an entire lineage
is defined by a single generic tooth. Exactly.
How many other nameless creatures are waiting
right now in museum drawers, just sitting in
a miscellaneous box waiting for someone to notice
they need a rebrand? There is an entire unseen
world in those archives. Something to think about
the next time you look at a polished museum display.
There is always a messier story behind the glass.
Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. It was
a pleasure. We will catch you on the next one.