Scientists identify 240-million-year-old amphibian fossil with preserved skeleton and skin
Updated
Updated · ScienceDaily · May 6
Scientists identify 240-million-year-old amphibian fossil with preserved skeleton and skin
12 articles · Updated · ScienceDaily · May 6
UNSW Sydney and Australian Museum researchers said the specimen, named Arenaerpeton supinatus, was found in a New South Wales garden retaining wall after quarry stones were collected in the 1990s.
The roughly 1.2-metre Triassic freshwater predator from the Sydney Basin was almost fully intact, with rare skin traces and fang-like teeth, making it one of the state's most important fossil finds in decades.
Published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the study says the temnospondyl may illuminate how large-bodied amphibians survived for another 120 million years through two mass extinctions.
How did a prehistoric predator's soft tissue survive 240 million years in a garden wall?
Before dinosaurs ruled, what made this giant salamander-like amphibian the apex predator of its time?
What other biological secrets are ancient fossils hiding that advanced technology can now finally uncover?