Andrias matthewi (Hodari Nundu)

Do you know what Hodari and a giant salamander have in common? Neither of us knows if a giant salamander can eat a baby gomphothere. But that didn´t stop us from trying :B

This encounter may have taken place somewhere in North America during the Miocene, around 16-13 million years ago. Lakes and rivers at the time would've been inhabited by an incredible amphibian, the giant salamander Andrias matthewi. Today, Andrias salamanders are found only in Asia, specifically China and Japan, and they are still the largest amphibians in the world, reaching up to 1.5, sometimes 1.8 m long in the largest species! Andrias has an interesting story because it was first named based on a fossil skeleton found in Germany in 1726. People at the time thought it was a human skeleton (it was missing its tail, which surely helped), and because the concepts of evolution, extinction and deep time were not yet well understood or accepted, it was named Homo diluvii testis, meaning, "the man who witnessed the Flood".

Subsequently it was found to be non human and variously suggested to be a catfish and even a lizard, before finally being recognized as a salamander in the early 19th century. Eventually it was named "Andrias", meaning something like "after man's image" as a reference to the initial confusion.

Both the European fossils and the North American ones show that giant salamanders, today critically endangered and geographically restricted, were once much more widespread. They also got bigger- potentially much bigger. Andrias matthewi here may be the largest true salamander known from the fossil record. One specimen from the US, known from its fossil jaw was estimated in 1.52 m which is plenty big, but the biggest come from Saskwatchewan, Canada, where another specimen was estimated at up to 2.3 m!

Other than their size they would've been pretty similar in habits to today's giant salamanders from Asia; ambush predators, entirely aquatic, mostly nocturnal, and pretty voracious, tho here its attacking a baby Zygolophodon may be more a defensive reaction at being stepped on, or maybe confusion due to poor eyesight. Tho not dangerous to humans, giant salamanders are known to bite hard!

Trouvé ici.