Posted on 11/08/2015 1:14:06 PM PST by JimSEA
Two hundred and seventy-eight million years ago, the world was a different place. Not only were the landmasses merged into the supercontinent of Pangaea, but the land was home to ancient animals unlike anything alive today. But until now, very little information was available about what animals were present in the southern tropics. In a study published in Nature Communications, scientists from The Field Museum and colleagues from around the world describe several new amphibian species and a reptile from northeastern Brazil that help fill this key geographic gap and reveal how animals moved among regions in the supercontinent.
"Almost all of our knowledge about land animals from this time, comes from a handful of regions in North America and western Europe, which were located near the equator," said Field Museum scientist Ken Angielczyk, one of the paper's authors. "Now we finally have information about what kinds of animals were present in areas farther to the south, and their similarities and differences to the animals living near the equator."
The paper describes two new species, both archaic aquatic carnivorous amphibians. One, Timonya annae (tih-MOAN-yuh ann-AYE), was a small, fully aquatic amphibian with fangs and gills, looking something like a cross between a modern Mexican salamander and an eel. The other new species, Procuhy nazarienis (pro-KOO-ee naz-ar-ee-en-sis), an amphibian whose name in the Timbira language of its Brazilian homeland, means "fire frog." Procuhy didn't live in fire, though--it spent its whole life in water. Its name comes from the Pedra de Fogo ("Rock of Fire") Formation where it's from, so named for the presence of flint. Although both species are distant relatives of modern salamanders, they are not true frogs or salamanders, but members of an extinct group that was common during the Permian.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Reminds me of Mad Magazine and their fixation with the axolotl.
The Permian Age: Where there are major specie extinctions, and reptiles multiply in great abundance. That sounds like Obama’s immigration plan to me.
/mark
Indeed it was.
I am turning into a mushroom.
Hey, quit sporing around.
So that’s why I couldn’t find Kazakhstan back then. They moved it!
Thanks KoRn. This is ribbetting news.
If when they feel threatened, I can’t help but to wonder whether the frogs will literally belch fire from their mouths as a primary defense mechanism.
:’) It would have completely transformed Aristophanes’ play.
Man!!!
The only reason I know that reference is that in 1961, Mrs. Dolittle (no joke, that was her name), the General History teacher had the English teacher come into the class and do the chorus from "The Frogs".
Weirded us out completely, LOLOL!
Funny what the mind remembers. :^)
That sounds like it was (you guessed it) ribbetting.
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