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What Is Kermitops? All We Know About The New Ancient Amphibian Species Set To Be Named After Kermit the Frog
Scientists have discovered a fossilized skull from a 270 million-year-old amphibian species, Kermitops gratus which features wide eyes and a wide mouth and is named after Muppet character Kermit the Frog.
Scientists have discovered a fossilized skull from a 270 million-year-old amphibian species, named Kermitops gratus which will be named in honor of the famous Muppet character Kermit the Frog. The fossilized skull, found in a research paper published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, features wide eyes and a wide mouth, making it a new species in the history of amphibians.
What is Kermitops?
Scientists suggest naming prehistoric species after the iconic frogs like Kermit to bridge the gap between historians, researchers, and the general public.
“Using the name Kermit has significant implications for how we can bridge the science that is done by paleontologists in museums to the general public,” Calvin So, a doctoral student at George Washington University and the lead author on the research paper, said in a press release. “Because this animal is a distant relative of today’s amphibians, and Kermit is a modern-day amphibian icon, it was the perfect name for it.”
The name comes from Jim Henson's original Muppets character and the Greek suffix "-ops," meaning face. Kermitops had massive, cartoonish eyes, similar to Kermit. The species name "gratus" was chosen in honor of paleontologist Nicholas Hotton III, who worked at the Smithsonian and made several trips to dig at the north central Texas site where the skull was found.
According to the researchers, the first clue they had that they had discovered an unknown frog species came in 2021, when postdoctoral paleontologist at the Smithsonian Arjan Mann spotted the mysterious-looking skull in a shipment of fossils from the Texas dig site.
"One fossil immediately jumped out at me — this really well preserved, mostly prepared skull," Mann, a co-author on the paper, said in the release.
Scientists have discovered that the Kermitops gratus skull, unlike other prehistoric frog genus, did not belong to an existing creature. The skull had a smaller eye section than its snout, potentially allowing the animal to catch small insects, resembling a stout salamander.
Researchers have also noted that Kermitops gratus' fossil is a temnospondyl, a diverse group of primitive amphibian relatives that lived for over 200 million years from the Carboniferous to the Triassic periods, providing crucial insights into the origins of modern amphibians and their prehistoric ancestors.
“Kermitops offers us clues to bridge this huge fossil gap and start to see how frogs and salamanders developed these really specialized traits,” So added.
"This is an active area of research that a lot more paleontologists need to dive back into," Mann said in the press release. "Paleontology is always more than just dinosaurs, and there are lots of cool evolutionary stories and mysteries still waiting to be answered. We just need to keep looking."
A brief on Kermit the Frog
Kermit the Frog is a Muppet character created and originally performed by Jim Henson in 1955. Kermit is the pragmatic everyman protagonist of numerous Muppet productions, most notably as the showrunner and host of the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show and a featured role on Sesame Street He has appeared in other television series, feature films, specials, and public service announcements through the years. He served as a mascot of The Jim Henson Company and appeared in various Henson projects until 2004.
Kermit performed the hit singles Bein' Green in 1970 for Sesame Street and "Rainbow Connection in 1979 for The Muppet Movie, the first feature-length film featuring the Muppets. Kermit's original performance of Rainbow Connection reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2021.
Henson performed Kermit until his death in 1990, and then Steve Whitmire performed Kermit from that time until his dismissal in 2016; Kermit has been performed by Matt Vogel since 2017. He was also voiced by Frank Welker in Muppet Babies and occasionally in other animation projects, and is voiced by Matt Danner in the 2018 reboot of Muppet Babies.
Kermit has remained as a recognizable character in popular culture worldwide for over half a century, starring in several television series and films, and receiving dozens of honors and awards by various organizations. In 2006, the character was credited as the author of Before You Leap: A Frog's Eye View of Life's Greatest Lessons, an autobiography told from the perspective of the character himself.
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