Two students named their 309-million-year-old discovery after their moms

Two student scientists at the Field Museum in Chicago have identified a frog-like amphibian that lived 309 million years ago, and they named it after their mothers. Allison Sefcovic and Payton Kohlberg described the creature, an early ancestor of today's frogs and salamanders, from a fossil found years ago in the Mazon Creek area near present-day Chicago. Both of their mothers happen to be named Jean. So the animal became Jeanerpeton mazonensis, meaning "Jean's crawler from Mazon Creek." It looked like a salamander but squat and chubby, and the fossil preserved details normally lost to time. "You can even see the eye impressions. It's so cool to see," Sefcovic said. The specimen had long been dumped into a catch-all category scientists call a "waste bin taxon," grouped with a better-known species. Enough evidence now sets it apart. Kohlberg, who knew little about paleontology before the internship, said the work made her more confident trying something new.