Limbless, essentially sightless, it burrowed in the soil for a meal of insects or insect larvae. It was a lizard – but it looked like an earthworm.

In February 2016, paleontologist Michelle Stocker announced the discovery of a new lizard species in the Big Bend. She named it Solastella cookei – the “Lone Star Lizard.”

You won't find the lizard today. It made its home in West Texas 40 million years ago, when the land was lush and tropical, and when animal life as it exists today was just beginning to take shape.

Michelle Stocker is a research scientist at Virginia Tech University. Her PhD studies at UT-Austin took her to the Dalquest Desert Research Station, 60 miles southeas...