Some 40 million years before rock singer Jim Morrison's
lyrics earned him the moniker "the Lizard King," an actual king
lizard roamed the hot tropical forests of Southeast Asia, competing with
mammals for food and other resources.
A team of U.S.
paleontologists, led by Jason Head of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
describes fossils of the giant lizard from Myanmar this week in the scientific
journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Their analysis shows that it is one
of the biggest known lizards ever to have lived on land.
The creature's scientific name is Barbaturex morrisoni --
which means "Lizard King," in honor of the aforementioned Doors
singer.