Giant Salamander from the Ice Age Before Dinosaurs

He lived in the old swampy areas of what is now Namibian desertand the scientists who discovered it described the predator as a giant salamander-like creature that inhabited the area during the Ice Age before the dinosaurs.

Paleontologists from several countries have found fossils of a ferocious predator and dated its origin to some forty million years agos when the first dinosaurs appeared. Today they publish the results of their work in a journal. Nature.

The researchers, mostly from centers in the United States and Argentina, named the animal “Gayasia Jennyae” – The fossil was found in the Gai-As formation in Namibia, and they concluded that it was larger than a human and lived at the bottom of swamps and lakes.

Only Its skull measured over 60 centimeters.and the fossilized animal lay in wait with its mouth open, ready to snag some prey with the giant teeth it had at the front of its mouth, the scientists detailed, describing it as a great predator, though also a relatively slow predator.

British paleontologist took part in the work Jenny Cluckwho was one of the world’s leading experts on the evolution of the first tetrapods – the four-legged vertebrates that evolved from lobe-shaped fishes and gave rise to amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Researcher Claudia Marsicanofrom the University of Buenos Aires, recalled the impact the discovery of this huge specimen had on them, and the feeling the researchers had from the start that they were dealing with something “completely different.”

“When I examined the skull, I was struck by the structure of the front part. It was the only part that was clearly visible at that moment, and it showed large intertwined fangs “It was very unusual, creating a unique bite for the first tetrapods,” Marsicano explained.

The team dug up multiple copiesincluding one with a well-preserved skull and spine.

Namibia today lies north of South Africa, but 300 million years ago it was even further south. around the 60th parallel, almost at the same level as the northernmost point of modern Antarctica, and at that time the Earth was approaching the end of the Ice Age.

The marshy land near the equator dried out and became increasingly covered with forest, but closer to the poles the marshes still remained, perhaps close to them. ice patches and glaciers.

In the warmest and driest regions of the planet, animals evolved into new forms, and the first four-legged vertebrates appeared, called trunk of tetrapodsThey branched and diverged into the lines that later became mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, but on the fringes, in places like modern Namibia, older forms survived.

The researchers concluded that Geasia is a remnant of that earlier group before they evolved and split into the groups that later became mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibiansand that it is a very archaic animal, related to organisms that probably became extinct 40 million years ago.