Paleontology Swamp creature from prehistoric times discovered in Namibia

Giant and toothy: researchers in Namibia have discovered a salamander-shaped predator that probably sucked in its prey from an ambush.

The animal's fang-covered head alone measured more than half a meter, the entire animal around two meters, as the team reports in the journal "Nature".

Around 300 million years ago, it was probably lying in wait at the bottom of swamps and lakes, opening its wide, flat mouth to suck in creatures swimming by and then holding them with a powerful bite.

The creature, which resembled a giant salamander, was given the scientific name Gaiasia jennyae. Remains of the species were found in the Gai-As Formation in north-western Namibia, as reported by the team led by Jason Pardo from the Field Museum in Chicago.

The creature, which belongs to the tetrapods, lived around 280 million years ago in the Permian period - long before the first dinosaurs emerged.

It was a particularly archaic species of that time - organisms related to it had already died out around 40 million years earlier.

For being such a remnant of earlier times, the extraordinary creature had fared quite well - it appears to have been the most important predator in the ecosystem of the area. Other archaic animals 300 million years ago were small and rare, explained Pardo.

SDA