No amphibian on Earth lives in the ocean. Their porous skin – crucial for gas and water exchange – generally can’t cope with the salt.
But two fossils unearthed from a Late Triassic deposit in China suggest an ancient amphibian species not only inhabited saltwater – it made a proper return to the ocean, living its whole life at sea.
Geologist Lipin Diao and colleagues present the strange new amphibian, Gerrothorax maritimus, in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The two fossils were discovered by local farmers in Guanling County, in a layer of rock about 237 million years old, right in the middle of the Guizhou Triassic Fossil Sites.
The place where these Gerrothorax were found was totally submerged by seas during the Late Triassic. In other words, they seem to have inhabited a marine ecosystem, alongside ichthyosaurs, crinoids, and turtles.
