Skull that looks like a ‘Toy Story’ character unearthed in Texas

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Skull that looks like a ‘Toy Story’ character unearthed in Texas

Paleontologist Andre Lujan obtained a decisive pass from nature with his latest fossil discovery. Heavy rains have helped expose an almost complete skull of a huge ancient creature similar to a salamander in a career in the north of the center of Texas. And while it looks a bit like an anxious T. Rex From a beloved children’s film, this creature was not a dinosaur.

Lujan found the Megacephalus eryopsA large semi-aquatic predator amphibian with a large Noggin who lived 280 million years ago. The climate at that time was a little variable, but there were long periods when the conditions of the desert type in the new-mexical and the current Texas have become a more humid and marshy-shaped environment.

“”Eryops is an Apex predator (amphibian) of the Permian period, ”explains Lujan, who is also director of Texas Through Time Fossil Museum, explains Popular science. “They could reach up to six feet long (maybe more, but this is based on known fossils).”

A skeleton of an old amphibian with a large bulbous head exposed in a musuem — Megacephalus eryops Had a head designed for an ambush in the grip. Credit: Andre Lujan / Texas Through Time Fossil Museum.

These huge creatures similar to a salamander weighed more than 200 to 400 pounds and would probably have eaten everything it could hold in her big mouth. Its head was designed for aquatic or semi-aquatic ambush predators, similar to living alligators and crocodiles.

“We can say by the conception of their skull that they were ambushed predators, eyes on top of the head with nostrils to hide the body while they were waiting.”

Eryops Probably had not had the ability to chew, so would have eaten its whole prey or have torn it in pieces.

A brown fossil bed — *The fossil bed in northern Texas in Texas where* Megacephalus eryops was discovered. Credit: Credit: Andre Lujan / Texas Through Time Fossil Museum.

Paleontologists discovered their remains along the estuaries, streams or other bodies of water that could support hunting and breeding. Animal fossils as found in rocks dating from Permian in what was formerly the supercontinent pangea. Eryops is also a member of a larger group of amphibians who includes frogs, toads and current salamanders.

“Think of Bender hell or the giant salamander,” explains Lujan.

Finding a complete skull like this is exciting and rare, because they will often collapse under pressure during the millions of years that bones are needed to fossil. Having a more complete skull offers a more complete image of the animal’s life. More skulls also help because “in paleontology, the size of the sample is everything.” A wider pool of fossils to choose allows more prudent and precise comparisons, which can tell us more about their evolution.

“In some cases, finding pathological growth can teach us about old diseases and possible predation and interaction with other predators,” explains Lujan.

[ Related: A dinosaur ‘tombstone’ lurks underneath New Jersey. ]

Megacephalus eryops died between 310 and 295 million years old. However, he may have been lucky with his extinction time. He missed the permian-triasic extinction event, alias the Great Dying. Massive volcanic eruptions have triggered catastrophic climate change which has completely changed the entire biosphere of the planet. Out of around 60,000 years, 96% of the earth’s marine species and approximately three species of land have been destroyed.

Fossils are being eliminated and prepared to exhibit Times Museum for non -profit at Time Museum in Hillsboro, Texas, between the cities of Dallas and Waco. The free museum also houses the most complete Cretaceous shark ever found in the Lone Star State, a bull mammoth skull, among other discoveries.