Science Alert has a story about the redicovery of a key fossil in the back of a museum drawer.  Discovered around 2006, this new species, Bolg amondol, is a fossil gila monster from Utah.  It dates to the late Cretaceous.  The name translates to “mound-headed goblin prince” in J.R.R. Tolkien‘s Elvish language. Hank Woolley, paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s Dinosaur Institute, is the lead author of the paper “New monstersaur specimens from the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah reveal unexpected richness of large-bodied lizards in Late Cretaceous North America” in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

A newly discovered monstersaur roamed beneath the feet of giant dinosaurs. Paleontologists have described the new species as a giant Gila monster-like reptile, and bestowed on it a name fit for fantasy royalty.

The new species has been named Bolg amondol, which basically translates to “mound-headed goblin prince” in J.R.R. Tolkien‘s Elvish language.

“Bolg is a great sounding name. It’s a goblin prince from The Hobbit, and I think of these lizards as goblin-like, especially looking at their skulls,” says Hank Woolley, paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s Dinosaur Institute.

Although Bolg‘s bones have been rattling around in museum drawers since 2006, the creature was only recently examined and described. The remains are a very fragmentary skeleton, but this was enough information for Woolley and team to identify it as a new species and place it in its evolutionary lineage.