:) How science, field trips, and swift shipping services met

Meat-eating amphibian predates dinosaurs: Named after shipping service, Fedexia survived ancient climate shift

An interesting "rock" initially tossed aside at a FedEx site near Pittsburgh International Airport turns out to be the skull of a meat-eating, early terrestrial amphibian that lived 70 million years before the first dinosaurs emerged, according to a paper released Monday in the Annals of Carnegie Museum.

The approximately 300-million-year-old carnivorous amphibian has been named Fedexia striegeli. The genus name refers to the well-known shipping service, while the species name recognizes Adam Striegel, who spotted the animal's well-preserved, 5-inch-long (12.5-centimeter-long) fossil skull while he was a University of Pittsburgh student on a field trip.

Striegel originally threw it aside, thinking it wasn't important. But then he and class lecturer Charles Jones noticed its pointy teeth and tusks, so the skull was brought to experts at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

See what field trips to FedEx will get you?