Bones excavated from an ancient , dried - up lake in Portugal suggest that an ancient salamander - alike amphibian grow up to two meters ( 6.5 ft ) long , and during the Late Triassic 220 million years ago , they occupied the same top predatory corner as today ’s crocodile . Thefindingswere publish in theJournal of Vertebrate Paleontologythis calendar week .
The largest salamander we have nowadays aregiant Chinese salamanders , which can arise to more than a meter ( 3.3 foot ) long . Most , however , are much , much tinier . Primitive , predatory amphibians called metoposaurids are pretty common in the Upper Triassic deposit of what ’s now North Africa , Europe , India , and North America , and they ’re commonly found at low latitudes . ( The " saur " in their name is a flake deceptive , since they ’re amphibious vehicle and not lizard or dinosaurs . )
Now , by examine several skull and jaw specimens excavate in the Late Triassic bonebeds of Algarve in southerly Portugal , a squad led byUniversity of Edinburgh ’s Stephen Brusattehas disclose the firstMetoposaurusspecies from the Iberian Peninsula . The 100 - kilogram ( 220 lb)Metoposaurus algarvensiswas named after the realm where the fogy were unearth , and it belike uprise up to two meter ( 6.5 foundation ) long . Like today ’s crocs , they fed on fish in lake and rivers during the Late Triassic when the first dinosaur were just beginning to reign the satellite .
“ This new amphibious vehicle seem like something out of a high-risk monstrosity movie . It was as long as a little automobile and had hundreds of sharp tooth in its swelled compressed head , which kind of calculate like a commode tail when the jaws snap shut , ” Brusatte says in anews release . “ It was the type of fierce predator that the very first dinosaur had to put up with if they strayed too closemouthed to the water , long before the gloriole days of T. rex and Brachiosaurus . ”
Most of these top-notch salamander metal money died out during themajor quenching upshot 201 million years ago — paving the style for the dinosaur ' 150 - million - year sovereignty . Because metoposaur remains are often discover in bombastic groups , NBC reports , researchers think that mass deaths must have occurred . Perhaps the lake system forming their habitat dry up . Those thin legs could barely carry its exercising weight when out of the water .
This newly observe metal money , the team says , was part of an transmissible origin living on the supercontinent Pangaea , from which our frogs and newts evolved . Here ’s a airless - up :
ikon : Joana Bruno via University of Edinburgh
