It was a giant salamandra of strong jaws. He once excavated tunnels in the old floor of the state of Tennessee. His name is Dynamognathus Robertsoni. The salamanders that measured 40 cms were powerful animals and the ever existing.
Today, the forests of the southern Apalaches are recognized for their diversity and abundance of salamander species, especially lungs without lungs of the Plethodontidae family. Only in Tennessee inhabit more than 50 different salamanders, one in eight species of living salamanders.
Huge
The dark salamanders are common in the streams of the Apalaches. They evolved from excavating ancestors, relatives of the Salamandra of the red hills of Alabama. It is a large and underground species with a body similar to a small worm and limbs. Its explosive diversification began about 12 million years ago, shaping much of the diversity of salamanders of the region today.
The dark salamanders of the Apalaches today reach only 18 centimeters long at its maximum point. Researchers believe that predators like this could have promoted the rapid evolution of the salamanders that inhabit the streams of the Apalaches. This highlights the key role of the region in the diversification of the salamanders.
«The weather was much warmer in Tennessee 5 million years ago. Then came from cooling during the glaciations of the Pleistocene. It could have restricted the salamanders that measured 40 cms to lower latitudes, such as southern Alabama. There current release The research team.
Strong jaw
«This group of salamondras has an unusual cranial anatomy that gives them a great bite force. The name of the genre in Greek means' powerful jaw.
The name of the species pays tribute to Wayne Robertson, volunteer of the Gray fossil reservoir. He discovered the first specimen of the new Salamandra and has personally examined more than 50 tons of fossiliferous sediments since 2000.
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