Fossil 265 million years old found in France recently, thought to have come from amphibians such as lizard with a small head and has a semi-aquatic lifestyle similar to that of a hippopotamus. Experts call the fossils belonging to animals Lalieudorhynchus gandi (L. Gandi) measuring 4 meters.
Launch Live Science, the fossil was first discovered in 2001 in the Lodeve basin in southern France. The inventors were Jorg Schneider, professor of paleontology from the department of Paleontology and Stratigraphy at the University of Freiberg, Germany and doctoral candidate Frank Korner.
They wrote the discovery in a journal Palaeo VertebratesOctober 2021 issue. The journal was only published online in July last month.
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They found two large ribs, each 60 inches long. On his second visit, Korner then found additional bones from the mysterious animal, namely a thighbone (35 cm) and a shoulder bone (50 cm).
Analysis of the fossils took 20 years because the fossils were in hard cloaks and preparations took years to complete.
From these bones, paleontologists deduce that the primitive animal found was a caseid type – a fossil group of reptiles that have mammal-like characteristics and are predicted to be their ancestors. They later described the animal as a chubby lizard with a length of 3.5 meters.
The animal is thought to have lived in the Game period, which began at 299 million years ago and ended at 252 million years, with the advent of the Triasic period.
The majority of caseids are herbivores. They have a small head and a barrel-shaped body that contains a large stomach for breaking down plants.
Despite their reptilian appearance, caseids are the ancestors of mammals. “The highly diverse ancestral group of mammals was the dominant group before the dinosaur era,” said Ferderik Spindler, scientific director of the Altmuhltal Dinosaur Museum in Denkerdorf, Germany who also co-authored the journal.
Spindler says there are fewer than 20 species of caseids identified through fossils to date. Most of that number came from the United States and Russia. But recently, the caseid fossil was found in southern Europe.
However, L. gandi could be a more advanced and unprecedented caseid species. “The new genus is being diagnosed through digital comparison of anatomy. The analysis was carried out by the study’s lead author, Ralf Werneburg, Director of the Natural History Museum in Bertholdsburg, Germany.
According to Spindler, his colleague identified five unique features not known to exist in other caseids and more than 20 of these features make unique combinations within the family,” Spindler wrote.
Through microscopic monitoring, L. Gandi’s bone structure is known to be spongy and flexible. This has led experts to think that ancient caseids may have initiated a semi-aquatic lifestyle, much like today’s hippos.
In his lifetime, L. Gandi probably weighed hundreds of pounds, and he needed extra support by immersing himself in water. This was stated by the study. Despite having a hippo-like lifestyle, it doesn’t lie in its anatomy but its habitat.
(lth/lth)
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