New fossil amphibian provides earliest widespread evidence of terrestrial invertebrates

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 03:42 in Paleontology & Archaeology

A team of researchers from Carnegie Museum of Natural History has described a new genus and species of carnivorous amphibian from western Pennsylvania. The fossil skull, found in 2004 near Pittsburgh International Airport, was recovered from rocks deposited approximately 300 million years ago during the Late Pennsylvanian Period. Named Fedexia striegeli, it is one of only a very few relatively large amphibian fossils to display evidence of a predominantly terrestrial (land-based) life history so early in geologic time. The rocks where Fedexia was found are nearly 20 million years older than the localities of its fossil relatives, suggesting that the expansion and diversification of this group occurred much earlier than had been recognised previously. The full paper will be released today in Annals of Carnegie Museum, Volume 78, Number 4, 15 March 2010...

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