Archaeologists have discovered a fossil in a quarry in Australia with well-preserved prints of an ancient animal. The skeleton was preserved with attached head and body and even soft tissues. Despite this, to determine to what species the remains belong, scientists could not, so they left them for storage in the Australian Museum.
With the advent of new technologies, scientists returned to the find. A more detailed and modern study showed that the skeleton belongs to an ancient amphibian, which lived on earth before the appearance of dinosaurs about 240 million years ago.
It reached a meter in length and was similar to a hybrid of crocodile and salamander. The creature preferred to live in water and hunted fish and other animals.
Scientists called the ancient amphibian Arenaerpeton supinatus.
Earlier, paleontologists in the south of Brazil found the remains of a three-meter animal. Analyses showed that this predator lived on the South American continent 265 million years ago.