Giant #salamander-like creature was a top predator in the ice age before the dinosaurs
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-giant-salamander-creature-predator-ice.html
Claudia Marsicano et al.: Giant stem tetrapod was apex predator in Gondwanan late #Palaeozoic ice age https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07572-0
"40 million years before #dinosaurs evolved, a ferocious #predator lurked in swampy waters. It lay in wait, its jaws open wide... Meet #Gaiasia jennyae, the swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head."
Giant salamander-like creature was a top predator in the ice age before the dinosaurs
Forty million years before the first dinosaurs evolved, a ferocious predator lurked in swampy waters. Its skull alone was over two feet long. It lay in wait, its jaws open wide, preparing to clamp down its interlocking jaws on any prey unwise enough to swim past. Meet Gaiasia jennyae, the swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head. Scientists described the newly-discovered fossil in a paper in the journal Nature.
Early #JawlessFish was Filter-Feeder, #Paleontologists Find https://www.sci.news/paleontology/rhinopteraspis-dunensis-12846.html
The three-dimensionally articulated oral apparatus of a #Devonian heterostracan sheds light on feeding in #Palaeozoic jawless fishes https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.2258
"The images revealed the structure and arrangement of finger-like bones that project from the lower lip of the #animal’s mouth, which the #scientists believe acted to control the mouth’s size and shape as it captured food particles from surrounding water"
Early Jawless Fish was Filter-Feeder, Paleontologists Find | Sci.News
In new research, paleontologists used X-ray microtomography to characterize the feeding apparatus of an exceptionally well-preserved specimen of the Early
My parasitologist friend (who is on Bluesky @the-episiarch.bsky.social) told me about a parasitic flatworm that left its fossilized hooks on Lodeacanthus gaujicus and Asterolepis ornata from the Devonian of Latvia, and was described by Ieva Upeniece in 2001.
#parasitology #parasites #flatworm #fossil #palaeontology #invertebratepalaeontology #invertebrates #sciart #scientificillustration #devonian #palaeozoic #marinelife #prehistoric #placoderm
I painted the giant amphibian Eryops megacephalus, known from the Early Permian of Texas and even Late Carboniferous of New Mexico. These carnivores could reach an impressive length of 3 meters.
#eryops #permian #carboniferous #texas #newmexico #palaeozoic #palaeontology #vertebrate_paleontology #sciart #scientificillustration #amphibian #temnospondyl #fossil #watercolour #animalart #wildlifeart #natureart
A Dunkleosteus, reconstructed with extensive facial soft tissue, about to bite into an ammonite. I painted this last year shortly after Engelman et al. 2023 was published, hence the stocky proportions.
#dunkleosteus #placoderm #fish #marinelife #palaeontology #devonian #prehistoric #palaeozoic #marineanimal #ocean #ammonite
Lukas VFN 🇪🇺
Critterzoology
💧🌏 Greg Cocks
