A giant salamander—and by “giant” I mean about 2.5-4 meters long—equipped with teeth and wicked fangs was found in Namibia, dated at about 270 million years ago, and just reported in Nature. Its significance is that it is early, but is considered a “stem” tetrapod, meaning that it has some of the characteristics of modern amphibians, which are tetrapods (four-legged animals that could move around on land). The authors, according to this CBS News story, suremise that it “was considerably longer than a person, and it probably hung out near the bottom of swamps and lakes”. It was also an apex predator, meaning that it ate other animals, but there was nothing around that could eat it.
Its was found in an area that, 270 million years ago, was at high latitude, ergo cold and partly glaciated. This beast is the first suggestion that there was a tetrapod fauna in cold-ish climates at that time.
Click below to see the article, or download the pdf here:
The researchers recovered a skull that was about 60 cm (2 feet long), as well as the front part of the postcranial skeleton. The authors don’t give a size estimate, but with a two-foot head it was probably large, and could have been 12 feet long: the longest salamander known yet. (The largest living salamander, the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus), can attain a length of about 5 feet. This puppy could have been twice as long.
Two skull fragments were known of this animal before, but it hadn’t been named and there were no remains of the skeleton. The authors named this one Gaiasia jennyae, after the Gai-As formation in which it was found, and also after Jenny Clack (1947-2020), who studied early tetrapods. (This, of course, will anger the pecksniffs who think that animals shouldn’t be named after people, but they can jump in the lake.) It is the only species in the genus Gaiasia.
The sample in the field (from the Supplementary information):
Here’s the skull in dorsal (a,b) and ventral (c,d) views, and reconstructions.
And a reconstruction of the skull and postcranial skeleton they found. Because we don’t have the posterior skeleton, length estimates are guesses.
Here are photos and a reconstruction of the lower jaw. The white circles show the fangs, which are indicated in the upper drawing. There were three on each side, and interlocking fangs on the top mandible as well. It ate by both suction and biting:
. . . and a reconstruction of the front of the animal from the paper. Remember, that fearsome head was about two feet long!
Now this is unlikely to be any kind of ancestor of reptiles, but it’s likely that this is one of several species occurring when tetrapods had already evolved from fish and one of its relatives probably gave rise to modern amphibians, while another gave rise to all modern reptiles (and after followed the evolution of birds and mammals). Its importance is not only the “gee whiz” factor, but also the indication that there was a thriving ecosystem at high latitudes about 270 myr ago. After all, this is an apex predator, and it had to eat something aquatic (fish or, perhaps, other early amphibians). So if these creatures existed, there must also have been many other animals living at high latitudes at that time.
Forgive me but there are no legs in the fossil so how do we know it is a tetrapod? Could be a fish?
+1
Comment by Greg Mayer
They can tell it’s a tetrapod (i.e. an early amphibian) by the skull. The authors propose it is related to a particular group of early amphibians, the colosteids, which were elongate and had reduced limbs, hence their reconstruction of it with small limbs, despite the limbs not being found.
I was happy to see that the patronymic honors Jenny Clack, who we memorialized here at WEIT.
GCM
The neural and haemal arches figured interlock substantially, but vary in detail along the length of the spine. That talks of a structure supporting substantial weight without overwhelming buoyancy, and with considerable stiffness – which is incompatible with a fish’s swimming motion.
The cessation of haemal arches anterior of one vertebrum strongly suggests that this is where the pectoral girdle was attached, even if it’s not preserved.
By tetrapod fossil standards, this is a pretty good one – somewhere between 20 and 30% of the bones preserved. Obviously, we don’t know how many bones were in the unrepresented tail, and in any tetrapod skeleton, half of the bones are in the hands and feet.
Wow, fascinating, especially because of the implication that there was a lot of edible biomass roaming around at that time in seasonal habitats!
Amazing! Thanks for this post!
That is one incredible fossil! I saw secondary reports about this, but not the original paper in Nature. It appears as if they recovered some pieces of post-cranial skeleton; presumably this is how they know that it’s a tetrapod. Good question, and it would be good to get clarification. I don’t have access to the Nature article as it’s behind a paywall.
I’m afraid to go into the water!
If you can’t get to the article, just email me for a pdf.
I don’t think that you can call this a salamander – it existed before the Lissamphibia evolved.
When you go back to the Permian, it seems that everything looked like a salamander. Or a lizard. But those groups evolved at later dates.
/pedant
“Salamander” is an English vernacular term without formal taxonomic significance.
To confuse the issue, members of the specific Family Salamandridae are more often called ‘newts’.
This is correct, Raskos. The fossil is a stem tetrapod, not a salamander. Salamanders are a formal taxonomic group, referred to either as Caudata (includes stem lineages, those more closely related to crown group salamanders than to frogs) or Urodela (the crown group name).
I feel fortunately safe at this time that my personally most recent (“Stranger-danger-trigger-warnings-causing-alerts”-judiciously placed Here) encounter with a snake occurred at both bad place and time —- iow—bad expectations of instant harm to (quickly) safety by finding said snake small+non-venomous. (Try saying THAt( prev. Sentence (1) rapidly any number of times quickly). Just over a year plus two or so months ago I met a mix of (mimicry- since there appeared to be ALL real rattlers) v (actually) Bull snakes. Adding in genuine confusion after attempting to clarify by tying to imagined encounter with GIANT Salamander during
Approx. existence about 270 million yrs ago far away in spaces realistically..(?,..!!!)
Bull snakes do put on an impressive “I’m a rattlesnake” act. It fooled me when I first encountered it.
It is beautiful and magnificent! (Its prey might have disagreed.)
Another great science post. Thanks so much, Jerry.
Thanks for posting this. So interesting.
Interesting. Thank you Jerry.
Very interesting. Thank you!
Those of you remembering your plate tectonics textbooks will remember a reconstruction of South America snuggled up against the Bight of Benin and South Africa, with a radiating pattern of glacial striae in exposed bedrock of the period, the pattern continuing smoothly across what is now 5000-odd km of seawater.
That glaciation is typically given at about 320 Ma BP, some 50-odd Ma before this beastie. But close enough in time to suggest the environment was decidedly “sub-” of “sub-tropical”. 50 million years before today, glaciation was probably getting going in Antarctica, but hadn’t reached the “mountain glacier” stage in Greenland. Blame the Himalayas – all that rock eroding, soaking up CO2, reducing the greenhouse effect.
Working out what the climate of those days was is hard, because the distribution of continents was so different to today. All the continents were in essentially one lump – making a lot of areas very distant from the sea, and so low on rainfall (potentially “cold deserts” against the modern stereotype of “hot deserts”, dependent on latitude). But with all the oceans also “in one lump”, heat transport in the oceans would have been, at least, different.