Toothy 'Crocamander' Was Top Triassic Predator

Sept. 12, 2008 -- An enormous amphibian that lived 240 million years ago in Antarctica could really sink its teeth -- all three rows of them -- into prey, considering it had an extra set of large, sharp teeth on the roof of its mouth.

Its tooth-packed mouth, 2.75-foot-long head and 15-foot body help to explain how this beast, Kryostega collinsoni, was Antarctica's top known Triassic predator.

The animal 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."

Most temnospondyls have roof-of-the-mouth teeth, but those found in the new species are larger than usual, matching the teeth in its upper and lower jaws.

"Palatal teeth are very common among Permian and Triassic temnospondyls and probably functioned as fangs to retain struggling prey in the mouth," lead author Christian Sidor explained to Discovery News.

"Prey was probably swallowed whole or torn into smaller pieces -- no chewing," added Sidor, who is a University of Washington associate professor of biology and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.

He and colleagues Ross Damiani and William Hammer made their determinations after analyzing a piece of fossilized snout from the amphibian, which they liken to "a salamander on steroids."

The fossil was found in the Fremouw Formation of Antarctica, indicating the amphibian lived in an ancient freshwater river that existed when all of the world's land masses were joined together in the supercontinent Pangea.