WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have revealed fossils of a large salamanderlike beast with sharp fangs that dominated waters earlier than the primary dinosaurs arrived.The predator, which was bigger than an individual, doubtless used its extensive, flat head and entrance enamel to suck in and chomp unsuspecting prey, researchers mentioned. Its cranium was about 2 toes (60 centimeters) lengthy.“It’s appearing like an aggressive stapler,” mentioned Michael Coates, a biologist on the College of Chicago who was not concerned with the work.Fossil remnants of 4 creatures collected a couple of decade in the past have been analyzed, together with a partial cranium and spine. The findings on Gaiasia jennyae have been revealed Wednesday within the journal Nature. The creature existed some 40 million years earlier than dinosaurs developed.Open Picture ModalThis July 2, 2018 picture supplied by Claudia Marsicano exhibits a picture of the practically full skeleton from fossils recovered in Namibia of a large salamander-like creature on the Paleontology lab in Cape City, South Africa. (Claudia Marsicano through AP)Researchers have lengthy examined such historic predators to uncover the origins of tetrapods: four-legged animals that clambered onto land with fingers as a substitute of fins and developed to amphibians, birds and mammals together with people.Most early tetrapod fossils hail from scorching, prehistoric coal swamps alongside the equator in what’s now North America and Europe. However these newest remnants, relationship again to about 280 million years in the past, have been present in modern-day Namibia, an space in Africa that was as soon as encrusted with glaciers and ice.Which means tetrapods might have thrived in colder climates sooner than scientists anticipated, prompting extra questions on how and after they took over the Earth. “The early story of the primary tetrapods is rather more complicated than we thought,” mentioned co-author Claudia Marsicano on the College of Buenos Aires, who was a part of the analysis.The creature’s title comes from the Gai-As rock formation in Namibia the place the fossils have been discovered and for the late paleontologist Jennifer Clack, who studied how tetrapods developed.___The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Instructional Media Group. The AP is solely liable for all content material.