Ecological restoration of Gurney frog swallowing Nomin salamander (map/Zhang Zongda)
Today, Chinese and British paleontologists announced that they have found very rare fossil frog stomachs in the Cretaceous strata of the eastern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which gives us the first detailed understanding of the amazing predatory relationship between prehistoric amphibians, which is of great scientific significance. The research paper was published in Nature Science Reports.
The study was conducted by Associate Professor Xing Lida of China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Mr. Niu Kecheng, Executive Director of Yingliang World Stone Natural History Museum, and Susan M. Lee of University College London, UK. Professor Susan E. Evans co-researched.
The fossils published this time are from the Guanghua Formation formation of the Early Cretaceous Longjiang Basin of the 120 million-year-old Molidawada Huer Autonomous Banner in the Hulunbuir Region of inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The strata here are rich in fossils of the Rehe biota of Western Liaoning, such as vertebrates such as fish, turtles, amphibians, and fossils of invertebrates such as insects. They are like lifelike snapshots of prehistory, revealing the shape and behavior of creatures hundreds of millions of years ago.
The fossil stomach of the ancient frog found this time shows for the first time the predatory behavior between Cretaceous amphibians, which has important research and ornamental value. The "owner" of the stomach is a 120 million-year-old Gurney frog. The fossilized Gurney frog is well preserved, and the soft tissue outline of its body depicts a stout but juvenile frog: a broad, thick body with strong thigh muscles. It is about 7.5 cm long, the skull is 2.4 cm long, and about 50 small, tightly arranged teeth on each side of the maxilla are clearly visible.
Gurney frog and fossils of nomin salamander in the abdomen (Photo by Xing Lida)
The origin of this rare specimen is purely accidental. During a quest for the collection, Niu Kecheng stumbled upon the specimen from a collector in the fossil's place of origin. "It reminds me of a scene I watched in an animal documentary as a child: bullfrogs, typical opportunistic predators who swallow a highly poisonous salamander in one bite and are eventually poisoned by the salamander." A question suddenly arose in his mind: Bullfrogs always ignorantly collect their prey when they hunt, is it possible that their ancestors more than 100 million years ago had developed such a behavioral tendency?
Since then, Xing Lida and other scholars have begun to conduct detailed research on the stomach contents of the Gurney frog, and found that the "dinner" of the Gurney frog really swallowed almost a whole Nuomin salamander - the only salamander found in the fossil production area, looking like a small salamander.
"The Nomin salamander, which was swallowed in the stomach by the Gurney frog, has basically intact bones and is hinged together." Xing Lida said that this indicates that it was swallowed by the frog in its entirety — depending on the location of the skeleton, its tail is likely still outside the frog's mouth, "poor Gurney frog just swallowed the delicacy, before it had time to taste, it was buried in an instant."
What's even more interesting is that the two ancient amphibians were very close in size, and the Normin salamander probably went through a fight before it was swallowed by the Gurney frog. "These very coincidentally preserved fossils are very important for us to understand the feeding habits and behaviors of archaic frogs, as well as to reconstruct the food web and energy flow in paleo ecosystems." Xing Lida also mentioned that many of the living terrestrial salamanders have gorgeous skin that secrete toxins, but whether these features appear in Cretaceous salamanders is still unknown.
Author: Xu Qimin
Editor: Jin Wanxia
Editor-in-charge: Xu Qimin
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.