Who Ruled the Triassic Food Chain? A
Crocamander (or Is It “Frogodile”?)
About 240 million years ago, a 15-foot amphibian with a nasty bite ruled the Antarctic plains, say paleontologists who have described the creature for the first time. Fossils show that the predator, newly named Kryostega collinsoni,
had an extra set of teeth protruding from the roof of its mouth, which
helped it shred flesh and hold struggling prey still in its mouth.
The animal, which researchers called Antarctica’s top predator in the Triassic Period, resembled
a modern crocodile but was actually a temnospondyl, a prehistoric
amphibian that was an early relative of salamanders and frogs. Because
of their odd mixture of characteristics, members of this group are
sometimes nicknamed “crocamanders” or “frogodiles” [Discovery News]. The new species will be described in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
All of the large crocamanders had a
moment of glory during the Triassic Period, before dying out in the
extinction event that marks the boundary of the Jurassic Period. During Kryostega’s
time, the continents were still congealed in one supercontinent called
Pangaea…. Antarctica itself was located farther north and attached to
South Africa, South America, and Australia. The continent was also much
warmer back then, crisscrossed by large rivers and primeval forests [National Geographic News].
While researchers believe that all the crocamanders had teeth attached to their palates, the Kryostega’s extra set impressed researchers by being bigger and longer than usual. “Its
teeth, compared to other amphibians, were just enormous. It leads us to
believe this animal was a predator taking down large prey,” said [lead
researcher] Christian Sidor…. “We think Kryostega was an
aquatic animal, so it probably ate mostly fish and other amphibians
living in the river alongside it,” he said. “However, like modern
crocodiles, if land-living animals strayed too close to the river’s
edge, I expect that it would have been able to drag them in” [LiveScience].
Image: Christian Sidor
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