According to researchers, the incredible discovery could “rewrite the evolution of amphibians in Australia” and show that the country was a “great place for animals to evolve and find refuge after mass extinctions.”
Scientists have determined that the bones discovered in Australia’s New South Wales by a retired poultry farmer were those of a nearly 250 million-year-old lizard-like species. This marks the resolution of the puzzle that has enthralled scientists for so long.
A perplexing puzzle
It may “rewrite the evolution of amphibians in Australia,” according to researchers, and show that Australia was a “great place for animals to evolve and find refuge after mass extinctions.”
According to a BBC story, experts believe that the “new” amphibian species first roamed Australia some 247 million years ago.
Scientists calculate that the amphibian was around 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) long with a body shaped like a salamander based on the virtually entire bones.
The amazing amphibian, which resembles a lizard, is thought to have survived not just one global extinction event, but two. It belongs to the Temnospondyli family of hardy amphibians, which has survived two of the planet’s five mass extinction events, including a string of volcanic eruptions that obliterated roughly 70–80 percent of all dinosaurs around 66 million years ago.
The amphibian known as Arenaepeton supinatus—Latin for “sand creeper on its back”—once inhabited Sydney’s freshwater lakes and streams, according to specialists.
The discovery, according to palaeontologist Lachlan Hart, proves that “Australia was a great place for animals to evolve and find refuge after mass extinctions.” Lachlan Hart deciphered the petrified remnants and identified the fossil.
In Australia, the Temnospondyli species has only ever been successfully identified in three fossils to date.
The fossil was discovered where?
According to BBC, the discovery was accidental. The farmer, Mihail Mihaildis, was working on a damaged garden wall at his residence in the Umina neighborhood, which is around 86 kilometers from Sydney.
In order to do so, he bought a 1.6-ton chunk of sandstone, where he eventually discovered the imprinted form of an extraordinary amphibian of the species Arenaepeton supinatus. The astounding discovery will soon be permanently on exhibit at the Australian Museum.