“Really Shocking” – Researchers Discover Unusual Giant Swamp Creature From Before the Dinosaurs

The fossil of Gaiasia jennyae, a large prehistoric predator with a unique skull shape, was discovered in Namibia. It reveals significant details about the ecosystems near the poles 300 million years ago, showing how this species thrived in a cold swamp environment.

Researchers have discovered the fossil of a giant, swamp-dwelling predator that existed forty million years before the first dinosaurs evolved. Named Gaiasia jennyae, this creature had a two-foot-long skull, interlocking jaws, and a distinctive toilet-seat-shaped head.

“Gaiasia jennyae was considerably larger than a person, and it probably hung out near the bottom of swamps and lakes. It’s got a big, flat, toilet seat-shaped head, which allows it to open its mouth and suck in prey. It has these huge fangs, the whole front of the mouth is just giant teeth,” says Jason Pardo, an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the Field Museum in Chicago, and co-lead author of the Nature paper describing the fossil. “It’s a big predator, but potentially also a relatively slow ambush predator.”