Now a remote expedition to a large inland salt lake in 2017 has sifted through remains unearthed in Namba Formation deposits to describe a tiny new skink, an ancestor of Australia s well-known bluetongue lizards - to be named in honour of world-renown Flinders University lizard researcher Professor Mike Bull.
The new species, unveiled in the Royal Society s Open Science today, is described as Australia s oldest - a 25 million-year-old skink named Proegernia mikebulli after the late Flinders University Professor Mike Bull.
It was found by Flinders University and South Australian Museum palaeontologists and volunteers at a rich fossil site on Lake Pinpa located on the 602,000 square hectare Frome Downs Station, seven hours drive north of capital city Adelaide.