Prehistoric Super Salamander the Size of a Car Lived with Dinosaurs

A prehistoric salamander may have terrorized Earth during the rise of the dinosaurs. Researchers have uncovered a crocodile-like amphibian that was among our planet's top predators 200 million years ago.

The prehistoric species was discovered on the site of an ancient lake in southern Portugal. Named Metoposaurus algarvensis, the massive salamander probably grew up to 2 meters in length and lived in lakes and rivers during the Late Triassic Period. It most likely lived largely on fish, and formed part of the ancestral stock of modern amphibians; in fact, the species was a distant relative of the salamanders today.

Most members of the group of giant salamander-like amphibians were wiped out during a mass extinction event 201 million years ago, long before the death of the dinosaurs. This marked the end of the Triassic period, when the supercontinent of Pangea began to break apart.

"This new amphibian looks like something out of a bad monster movie," said Steve Brusatte, the leader of the new study on the ancient amphibian, in a news release. "It was as long as a small car and had hundreds of sharp teeth in its big flat head, which kind of looks like a toilet seat when the jaws snap shut. It was the type of fierce predator that the very first dinosaurs had to put up with if they strayed too close to the water, long before the glory days of T. rex and Brachiosaurus."

The findings reveal a bit more about this ancient predator, which a sharp contrast to the tiny modern amphibians of today.

The findings are published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

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