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Researchers have recently discovered evidence of an ancient enormous
amphibian that lived more than 250 million years ago and predates the period
of the dinosaurs. The new fossils were found at the Dave Green palaeosurface
in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province. They were found in a rock surface
and offer a wealth of information about an extinct animal that behaved
strikingly like crocodiles today.
The proof is in the shape of fossilized footprints, which demonstrate that
the enormous creature who left them formerly swam in a manner akin to
modern-day crocodiles. However, according to a
statement
from experts, the crocodile did not arise until some 50 million years after
the old gigantic amphibian did.
The rhinesuchid temnospondyls, of which we have previously discovered
skeletal remnants, lived in the late Permian Period, according to a recent
research on the discovery. These two-meter-long extinct gigantic amphibians
resembled huge salamanders or crocodiles in shape.
In addition to swimming like a crocodile, the rhinesuchid temnospondyls
also appeared to have searched through the water similarly. It appears that
these ancient gigantic amphibians tucked their feet when swimming, even
though the impressions revealed that they moved by swishing their tails side
to side. Although these organisms aren't the
planet's earliest known life, they nonetheless shed light on some of its early history.
A peer-reviewed publication with open access from the Public Library of
Science called PLOS ONE now has the study on this finding online. The
researchers emphasize that it is crucial to understand more about these
extinct large amphibians since it closes some of the gaps in our knowledge
of this time period.
It is not unexpected to find evidence of animals that lived before the
dinosaurs as we know them. There are many traces of the time period still
visible on Earth. Comparatively to subsequent times when dinosaurs roamed
the Earth, this era has received less direct exposure. Therefore, having
firsthand evidence of organisms that resemble those we subsequently observed
is instructive in many ways.
