Salamanders are the only known vertebrates capable of regenerating a lost limb, a faculty that they retain even when they have reached maturity.
However, a team of researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, in Germany, has discovered that some amphibians, probably related to these animals, could already do so 300 million years ago.
In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , these experts suggest that this ability is thus not recent, but dates back to the appearance of the first urodels.
The new limbs that develop modern salamanders are not exact replicas of the originals. Often, especially when they have lost the same limb more than once, they present scars and lumps, and some fingers appear fused on them.
These same peculiarities can be observed in the fossil specimen these scientists have analyzed , a Micromelerpeton that lived in what is now northwestern Germany.
The fact of detecting that an animal already showed this capacity so many millions of years ago has led the authors to wonder why then other species of tetrapods (such as mammals, birds, reptiles or other amphibians) do not possess it today . In your opinion, it was probably lost over time, perhaps because the process required an excessive expenditure of resources for the agency. Still, they believe their essay could shed light on how this mechanism works.
