Scientists find fossil of giant salamander from the time before the dinosaurs

It lived in ancient swampy areas of what is now the Namibian desert, and the scientists who discovered it have described this predator as a giant salamander-like creature that inhabited that area during the Ice Age before the dinosaurs.

Paleontologists from several countries have found the fossil remains of what was once a ferocious predator and have dated its origin to about forty million years before the first dinosaurs evolved. Today they publish the results of their work in the journal Nature.

The researchers, mostly from centers in the United States and Argentina, They have named the animal “Gaiasia jennyae” – the fossil was found in the Gai-As formation of Namibia-, and they concluded that it was larger than a person and lived near the bottom of swamps and lakes.

Its skull alone measured more than 60 centimetres, and the fossilised animal was lying in wait, jaws open and ready to seize prey with the gigantic teeth at the front of its mouth, the scientists said, describing it as a large predator, although also a relatively slow one.

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

“After examining the skull, I was struck by the structure of the front part. It was the only part clearly visible at the time, and It displayed large, interlocking fangs that were very unusual, creating a bite unique to early tetrapods.“, Marsicano explained.

Namibia is today north of South Africa, but 300 million years ago it was even further south, near the 60th parallel, almost at the same level as the northernmost point of present-day Antarctica, and at that time, the Earth was nearing the end of an ice age.

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