Before dinosaurs appeared on our planet, in the tropical areas of the super continent Pangea, lived one of the main predators whose fossils have been unearthed and studied. It is a species of gigantic salamander that lived 220 million years ago. The research has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology .
According to the scientists at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) in charge of the study, the remains discovered in an excavation in the Algarve, south of Portugal, belong to a new species of giant amphibian related to the modern salamander. The remains suggest that this great creature would have measured more than 2 meters long, weighed around 100 kilograms and its head was wide and flat .
The new species has been baptized as Metoposaurus algarvensis (in honor of the area of the find) and would have lived between 220 and 230 million years ago. According to the investigations of the experts, it would have been one of the largest predators within the group of known amphibians and would have fed on fish and small mammals near the shore of the waters in which it lived, since its small limbs would have prevented him from walking comfortably on the earth's surface.
The hundreds of remains found in an area of no more than 4 square meters excavated reveal that these creatures remained concentrated in one area of the lake and when it dried up, due to a prolonged drought, they all ended up dying .
