Out-of-Place Dome-Headed Reptile | The Institute for Creation Research

Out-of-Place Dome-Headed Reptile

An American research team recently reanalyzed a strange fossil the Works Progress Administration excavated in 1940 from the Triassic Otis Chalk in west Texas.1 This partial skull showed that the animal had a huge, thick dome on its head, much like pachycephalosaurs found in Cretaceous deposits. According to conventional consensus, 100 million years and a vicious extinction event separate the two fossil types. What role did an evolutionary perspective play in this team's conclusions about this supposedly out-of-place dome-headed fossil?

The skull goes by the genus name Triopticus and bears a strange pit in its middle. Its new description appears in the journal Current Biology, along with an interpretation of what must have happened to produce two very similar reptiles so distantly separated in evolutionary time.2

The study authors described specific features Triopticus had in common with pachycephalosaurs:

  1. Thick dome-shaped head
  2. Three bone-density zones within the dome
  3. Jaw joint toward the front of the skull
  4. The shape of their brains, as shown from CT scans of both skulls' internal brain cases

The team cautioned that the two are "not identical." Some common-looking features could reflect mineral deposits on the skull long after it was buried. Also, Triopticus had peculiar holes in its skull near its eyes that it shares with a large group of crocodile-styled animals whose remains landed in typically Triassic sediments.

Maybe Triopticus looked like some kind of dome-headed crocodilian. Nobody will know without more complete specimens. But Pachycephalosaurus, like Stegoceras found in Cretaceous strata, walked on two legs.

Meanwhile, the mystery of like-forms reappearing in later layers extends beyond just this fossil pair. The study authors surveyed body plan similarities between all sorts of reptiles from the Triassic versus the post-Triassic layers (Jurassic and Cretaceous). They analyzed skull dimensions, body skeleton features, tooth types, and basic interpretations like two-legged versus four-legged walking. They discovered that most body types actually overlapped between the different layers! They wrote,

Many of these recurring morphologies [shapes] are found in post-Triassic ornithodirans, such as sauropodomorphs, ornithomimosaurs, and spinosaurid dinosaurs, but especially within Ornithischia, including thyreophorans (e.g., Scutellosaurus, ankylosaurs) and, as we demonstrate here, between Triopticus and Cretaceous pachycephalosaurs.

How could a supposed end-Triassic extinction event wipe out one set of animals only for another set to suddenly reappear in similar or the same basic forms? The study authors asserted that these creatures somehow "re-evolved."2

So, dozens of animals evolved the same shapes twice—both times from just a few "stem" reptiles. What are the odds of that?

Other authors had also suggested that certain species evolved more than once, including crinoids and certain fish.

All these speculations ignore the Genesis Flood. If all these sedimentary rock layers represent Flood deposits, then millions of years did not separate them. Instead, perhaps mere months or just hours elapsed between each deposit. The deposits could represent different environments or elevations, not time periods.

The Flood scenario also solves the mystery of why fossils occur at all, since normal, low-energy river processes don't make fossils today, but abnormally-high-energy Flood processes could have. It also erases the need to imagine the same animal forms evolving multiple times.

God could have created different creatures with very similar outward appearances, like marsupial moles versus traditional moles, bandicoots versus rats, or possibly ceratopsians versus rhinoceroses. So those who speculate that certain animal forms re-evolved didn't necessarily get that idea from the fossils or the rocks. They got that idea from assuming evolution and its required millions of years.

References

  1. Unusual new species of extinct reptile shows dinosaurs copied body, skull shapes of distant relatives. Virginia Tech News. Posted on vtnews.vt.edu September 22, 2016. 
  2. Stocker, M. R., et al. 2016. A Dome-Headed Stem Archosaur Exemplifies Convergence among Dinosaurs and Their Distant Relatives. Current Biology. 26: 1-7.

*Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on October 6, 2016.

The Latest
CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Struck: Risking It All for the Truth | Creation.Live Podcast:...
In this unique episode, host Trey talks with three key people involved in creating Struck—an upcoming miniseries that shows the special ties between...

NEWS
Giant Ants Buried in Receding Flood Rocks
Evolutionary scientists are baffled by a large ant fossil found in British Columbia, Canada. Known as Titanomyrma, this same ant had been found previously...

CREATION PODCAST
Why Do Animals Hibernate? | The Creation Podcast: Episode 45
The word hibernation is often used in reference to deep sleep, but what is it really? What kinds of creatures hibernate? How does this demonstrate the...

NEWS
Thalattosuchians—Extinct Crocodile Relatives?
The Thalattosuchia are an extinct group of marine crocodylomorphs (a group that includes the crocodiles) that allegedly transitioned from land to water...

NEWS
The Star-Nosed Mole
The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) is a fascinating semi-aquatic mammal found in eastern Canada and the United States. Moles (placental mammals)...

NEWS
The Hexagon: An Indication of Order and Design in Nature
In nature, noncoincidental patterns and geometry exist everywhere. But the number six appears to overshadow nature’s mathematical landscape. Whether...

NEWS
Neanderthal Crab Bake
The evolutionary science community said it perfectly in their headlines: “Proof that Neanderthals ate crabs is another 'nail in the coffin'...

CREATION PODCAST
Is There Any Truth to Dragon Legends? | The Creation Podcast:...
Dragons are considered by many to be made-up creatures in fairytales and legends, but our ancestors produced many descriptions and depictions of "dragons,"...

NEWS
Our Sun, Finely Tuned for Life on Earth
Aside from appreciating the splendor of the sun during a beautiful sunrise or sunset, many rarely consider how special, necessary, and finely tuned...

NEWS
March 2023 ICR Wallpaper
"Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; Sing praises on the harp to our God, Who covers the heavens with clouds, Who prepares rain for the earth, Who...