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.
