“I knew…that this would be the nicest vertebrate fossil that I would probably ever touch,” Pitt faculty member Charles Jones recalls thinking when his student, Adam Striegel, showed him this fossilized skull of an ancient amphibian.

Pitt Undergraduate Discovers New Genus, Species of Ancient, Meat-eating Amphibian

Only the third 300-million-year-old amphibian skull fossil ever found; future schoolteacher Adam Striegel plans to inspire students with cast of fossil on his classroom desk

By Karen Hoffmann

While on a geology class trip, a Pitt undergraduate came across a previously unknown genus and species of a 300-million-year-old amphibian. Now he is reveling in the attention he is getting—newspaper, radio, and television coverage worldwide—for his discovery.

Adam Striegel, a senior liberal studies major in Pitt's College of General Studies from White Oak, Pa., found a fossilized skull of an ancient meat-eating amphibian with a vicious set of teeth.

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