Researchers in Namibia have found fossils from an enormous, extinct swamp creature with a rest room seat-shaped cranium.Gaiasia jennyae existed round 280 million years in the past — about 40 million years earlier than the primary dinosaurs developed — and gives a glimpse into the early evolution of tetrapods, or four-limbed vertebrates. Its cranium was greater than 2 ft (0.6 meters) lengthy, and researchers estimate the complete animal might have been to eight.2 ft (2.5 m) lengthy, probably making it the largest creature of its sort, in response to a press release. Researchers described the swamp creature in a examine revealed Wednesday (July 3) within the journal Nature.”Gaiasia jennyae was significantly bigger than an individual, and it most likely frolicked close to the underside of swamps and lakes,” examine co-lead creator Jason Pardo, a researcher on the Discipline Museum in Chicago, mentioned in a separate assertion.Associated: Beautiful 3D pictures present anatomy of 500 million-year-old Cambrian trilobites entombed in volcanic ashG. jennyae had interlocking jaws that enabled it to hunt for prey. The researchers imagine it was possible the apex predator in its swampy ecosystem.Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.”It is acquired a giant, flat, bathroom seat-shaped head, which permits it to open its mouth and suck in prey,” Pardo mentioned. “It has these big fangs, the entire entrance of the mouth is simply large tooth.”The researchers found the fossils within the Gai-As Formation in northwestern Namibia, which was the southern a part of the supercontinent Gondwana when G. jennyae existed. The staff found fossils from 4 people, together with cranium fragments and a vertebral column.The fossils of G. jennyae had been discovered mendacity in an outcrop of the Gai-As Formation. (Picture credit score: Roger M.H. Smith)”After we discovered this monumental specimen simply mendacity on the outcrop as a large concretion, it was actually stunning,” examine co-lead creator Claudia Marsicano, a researcher on the College of Buenos Aires, mentioned within the assertion. “I knew simply from seeing it that it was one thing utterly completely different. We had been all very excited.”Across the time G. jennyae lived, modern-day Namibia was positioned additional south, nearly parallel to the northernmost level of Antarctica right this moment, and an ice age was coming to an finish.Whereas the land close to the equator had begun drying up and new animals had been evolving to fill niches, swamps nearer to the poles remained, enabling animals to retain extra primitive options.. Artist impression of G. jennyae, which lived in swamps on the supercontinent Gondwana. (Picture credit score: Gabriel Lio)G. jennyae is a stem tetrapod — an early vertebrate that displays intermediate traits between fish and the primary true four-limbed tetrapods. Stem tetrapods nonetheless retained aquatic options like gills and had limbs that weren’t totally developed for motion on land.”It is actually, actually stunning that Gaiasia is so archaic,” Pardo mentioned. “It was associated to organisms that went extinct most likely 40 million years prior.”G. jennyae exhibits how animals that existed additional south had been radically completely different from these nearer to the equator, Pardo mentioned within the assertion. Its success throughout this important geological interval might make clear how the world was altering to help completely different types of life.”The extra we glance, we would discover extra solutions about these main animal teams that we care about, just like the ancestors of mammals and trendy reptiles,” Pardo mentioned.