Millions of years ago, before Tyrannosaurus rex roamed the Earth, a giant predator terrorized the ancient swamps.
Ferocious Ancient Water Creature
In the Gai-As formation in northwestern Namibia, a team of archaeologists uncovered fossilized skeleton parts that belong to four different specimens. According to vertebrate paleontologist Claudia Marsicao of the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, the specimen's shape was that of a giant concretion lying on the outcrop.
Known as Gaiasia jenny, the specimen was named for both the location of its discovery and the late Jenny Clack, a much-respected paleontologist who specialized in the evolution of early tetrapods. As described by paleontologist Jason Pardo, a paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the predator is actually bigger than a person and probably prowled around the bottoms of swamps and lakes.
Most of what we know of the early evolution of tetrapods comes from fossil specimens collected from what is now Europe and North America - yet Gaiasia jennyae is known from far further south.
Though Namibia is just northwest of South Africa today, 300 million years ago, it was much farther south, nearly touching Antarctica. As the planet warmed after an ice age was drawing to a close, swamps like the ones inhabited by Gaiasia Jennyae may have coexisted with stretches of ice and glaciers.
According to Pardo, the discovery of the predator tells us what was happening in the far south, and that is a very different picture from what was happening at the equator. This is actually a very important finding because since that time, many other groups of animals have appeared, and the question of their origins is still open.
Experts believe the new specimens might connect some of the fossil record dots. There is other evidence that early tetrapods, like this one, might have ranged over more of the planet than had been previously suspected.
What Does Gaiasia Jennyae Look Like?
While digging its remains, the archaeologists found several specimens, including a well-preserved, articulated skull and spine. The well-recovered articulated skull showed a whole skull, thus giving the experts a strong idea of how it looked.
Gaiasia jennyae is a large-fanged, salamander-like swamp creature with a skull around 24 inches (60 centimeters) long. This fierce predator lived around 280 million years ago during the early Permian period of history, some 40 million years before dinosaurs began to stalk the earth.
It has an alarmingly large, smooth, toilet seat-like head that accommodates opening the mouth to suck in prey, leaving the entire front of the mouth as giant teeth.
The giant animal is probably slow, depending on ambushes rather than sheer speed. This means that if a person had stumbled across one, they might just have had a chance of escaping its clutches.
When discovered, Gaiasia Jennyae left only the structure of the front of the skull as the clearly visible part. The large fangs were very unusually interlocking and created a very special bite for early tetrapods.
Aside from its size and large interlocking fangs, what makes Gaiasia jenny so notable is its connections to even more ancient creatures back through time. These connections were still evident in the predator even while other similar species in warmer climates were evolving into something new.
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