Andrias Scheuchzeri

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Andrias Scheuchzeri
Fossil by Andrias Scheuchzeri in the Berlin Museum of Natural History (Berlin).

Fossil by Andrias Scheuchzeri in the Berlin Museum of Natural History (Berlin) .

Temporal occurrence
Oligocene (Upper Chattian ) to Pliocene ( Zancleum )
23.03 to 3.6 million years
Locations
Systematics
without rank: Amphibians (Lissamphibia)
Order : Tail amphibian (caudata)
Superfamily : Cryptobranchoidea
Family : Giant Salamander (Cryptobranchidae)
Genre : Asian giant salamander ( Andrias )
Type : Andrias Scheuchzeri
Scientific name
Andrias Scheuchzeri
( Holl , 1831)

Andrias Scheuchzeri is an extinct giant salamander that was foundin Central Europefrom the Upper Oligocene to the Pliocene . A first, almost complete fossil of this type was found in 1725 in the Öhningen limestone near Öhningen on the southern slope of the Schiener Berg and described in 1726 by the Zurich city doctor and naturalist Johann Jacob Scheuchzer as " Homo diluvii testis " ( Latin , "the man who witnessed the Flood ") .

Research history

The species was first described by the Swiss doctor and naturalist Johann Jacob Scheuchzer in 1726 as "Homo diluvii testis". He believed that he was looking at the skeleton of a sinful person from the time before the Flood and described it as "the skeleton of a wicked human child, for the sake of whose sin the misfortune had befallen the world".

However, there were soon doubts about Scheuchzer's interpretation. Johannes Gessner suspected the fossil remains of a catfish ( Silurus glanis ) in Scheuchzer's “homo diluvii testis” in 1758, and Camper saw it as a representative of Lacerta , ie the lizards.

In 1802 Martinus van Marum bought the original fossil for the Teylers Museum in Haarlem (Netherlands). A few years later, Georges Cuvier visited the museum in Haarlem and received permission from van Marum to examine the fossil more closely. In doing so, he succeeded in uncovering the bones of the front limbs that were still hidden in the rock and correctly identified the supposed "human witness of the Flood" as a representative of the amphibians .

As a scientific first processors now considered Friedrich Holl , of the type in 1831 as Salamandra scheuchzeri scientifically valid described . Around the same time, Siebold made the first copies of the Japanese giant salamander known in Europe . The similarity of the recent species from East Asia with the European fossils was immediately obvious and Tschudi introduced the genus Andrias in 1837 (from ancient Greek ᾰ̓νδρῐᾱ́ς: "statue", "image of a man / human being"; " Andrias Scheuchzeri" accordingly, for example, "Scheuchzer's image of man ") ).

The specimen originally described by Scheuchzer is still today under inventory number 8432 as a lectotype in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem.

Fossils by Andrias Scheuchzeri in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem (Netherlands). The example in the center of the picture with the inventory number 8432 is the "homo diluvii testis" originally described by Scheuchzer.

Characteristics and problems of taxonomy

Unless otherwise stated, description based on Böttcher, 1987.

Andrias Scheuchzeri was a large member of the tailed amphibian from the family of giant salamanders (Cryptobranchidae), which could reach head-trunk lengths of up to over 1 m. The skull is broad and flattened and takes up about 20-25% of the head-trunk length. The shape of the eye sockets ( orbits ) seems variable, circular or oval.

In contrast to the related North American sludge devils the cheek piece (Pars facial) of the upper jaw bone (is maxilla ) (in contact with the frontal bone frontal Os ), Os the prefrontal and the nose ( nasal bone ). One tear bone (os lacrimae) is missing.

The upper jaw has 60–110 teeth, the lower jaw 65–101. The teeth themselves are bicuspid ("two-humped"), with a dominant, tongue-shaped main tip curved towards the oral cavity and a very weakly pronounced secondary tip, divided by a ring suture in the base and crown and pleurodont (not rooted within the jawbone, but sitting on the side) on the Fixed inner edge of the jaw.

The ribs are flattened. The vertebrae are deeply amphicoel, ie with funnel-shaped indentations at both ends, and show a rectangular outline when viewed from the side. The indentations are asymmetrical, with their ends shifted dorsally (towards the back). The ends of the indentations almost touch each other and are only separated by a thin wall of bone.

The limbs are short with four toes on the front legs and five toes on the hind legs. The hand ( carpus ) and tarsus ( tarsus ) were, as Tschudi noted in 1837, apparently only cartilaginous . Since cartilage is difficult to preserve fossil, even in well-preserved, articulated (ie preserved in combination) skeletons, the finger or toe bones appear strangely separate from the other bones of the limbs (“carpus” or “tarsus gap”).

By the end of the 19th century, a total of three fossil species of the genus Andrias had been described from various sites and horizons in Central Europe :

  • Andrias Scheuchzeri , (Holl, 1831)
  • Andrias tschudii , V. Meyer, 1859
  • Andrias bohemicus , Arbor, 1897

A comparative analysis of the available evidence by Westphal showed, however, that the individual species did not have any species-specific skeletal features that would have justified a differentiation from the other species and the species Andrias tschudii and Andrias bohemicus were taken over as synonyms in the taxon Andrias Scheuchzeri according to the priority rule .

As Westphal noted in 1958 or 1959, none of the specimens of Andrias Scheuchzeri found so far show any skeletal features that would allow a clear distinction to the recent forms of the Chinese giant salamander ( Andrias davidianus ) or the Japanese giant salamander ( Andrias japonicus ). The recent species Andrias davidianus and Andrias japonicus can not be distinguished from one another on the basis of osteological characteristics alone . The typical features here are in the details of the soft tissue anatomy, not in the skeletal structure. It was also found that Andrias davidianus and Andrias japonicus are closely related enough that they can crossbreed, but the hybrids are not reproductive.

Westphal suggested that the recent forms of East Asia and the fossil representatives of Europe into a kind of Andrias scheuchzeri summarize and recent, East Asian forms each as subspecies Andrias scheuchzeri davidianus or Andrias scheuchzeri japonicus be assessed and a fossil, European subspecies Andrias scheuchzeri scheuchzeri over to put. This proposal, although strictly taxonomically correct, met with only moderate interest in the professional world and it has become common practice to compare the recent forms as separate species, Andrias davidianus and Andrias japonicus , to a fossil European species Andrias Scheuchzeri , although this is due to their skeletal features are indistinguishable.

Fossil record and stratigraphic distribution

Living reconstruction by A. Scheuchzeri

Well-known sites are according to Böhme et al., 2012:

Many finds from southern Germany come directly from or near the barley sand channel

The oldest fossil record of Andrias Scheuchzeri comes from the uppermost Chattium (Mammal Paleogene Zone MP30) of Oberleichtersbach in Bavaria. The most recent find so far, provided that the two recent forms Andrias davidianus and Andrias japonicus are evaluated as separate species and not as subspecies of Andrias Scheuchzeri , comes from the Lower Pliocene ( Zancleum ) of Willershausen in the western foreland of the Harz Mountains.

Paleoecology

Due to the extensive similarities in the skeletal features, it can be concluded that Andrias Scheuchzeri , like the recent East Asian representatives of the giant salamanders , lived an almost purely aquatic way of life throughout their life. The diet can also be assumed to be largely the same.

The fact that many (if not all) fossil remains of Andrias Scheuchzeri were found in the sediments of still waters can be interpreted in different ways:

  • Andrias Scheuchzeri , like his recent relatives from East Asia, preferred to live in rapidly flowing, oxygen-rich rivers and streams and the carcasses of the relatively large animals were washed into nearby still waters, where the possibilities for fossil conservation were much more favorable than in the actually preferred habitat.
  • In contrast to his recent, East Asian relatives, Andrias Scheuchzeri lived not only in fast-flowing mountain streams, but also in larger, still waters, where fossils have been preserved. Oxygen-rich streams and rivers were only used for reproduction.

Andrias Scheuchzeri was probably dependent on habitats with frost-free winters. In paleoclimatology , Andrias Scheuchzeri's fossils are used as a proxy (indirect climate indicator) for increased values ​​of the average annual rainfall (> 900 mm).

Others

In Karel Čapek's science fiction novel The War with the Newts (1936) mankind is at war with the fictional descendants of this extinct amphibian.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c M. Böhme: Ectothermic vertebrates (Teleostei, Allocaudata, Urodela, Anura, Testudines, Choristodera, Crocodylia, Squamata) from the Upper Oligocene of Oberleichtersbach (Northern Bavaria, Germany). In: Courier Research Institute Senckenberg , Volume 260, pp. 161–183, 2008. (digitized version )
  2. ↑ a b c F. Westphal: First evidence of the giant salamander (Andrias, Urodela, Amphibia) in the European Jungpliocene. In: New Yearbook for Geology and Palaeontology , monthly books, 1967, pp. 67–73, 1967.
  3. ↑ JJ Scheuchzer: Homo diluvii testis . Zurich, 1726 (digitized version)
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h F. Westphal: The tertiary and recent Eurasian giant salamanders. In: Palaeontolographica , Division A, Volume 110, pp. 20-92, 1958.
  5. ↑ CF Winkler Prins: The paleontological heritage in the Netherlands. In: Reports of the Federal Geological Institute , Volume 52, pp. 75–82, 2000. (digitized version )
  6. ^ G. Cuvier: Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes. Volume I, p. 83, 1812. (digitized version)
  7. ^ F. Holl: Handbuch der Petrefactenkunde. Dresden, 1831.
  8. ↑ a b I. J. Tschudi: About Homo diluvii testis, Andrias Scheuchzeri. In: New Yearbook for Mineralogy, Geognosy, Geology and Petrefactology , Volume 5, pp. 545–547, 1837. (digitized version )
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g R. Böttcher: New finds by Andrias Scheuchzeri (Cryptobranchidae, Amphibia) from the southern German Molasse (Miocene). In: Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History - Series B (Geology and Paleontology) , No. 131, 38 pp., 1987. (digitized version)
  10. ↑ RK Browne, H. Li, Z. Wang, PM Hime, A. McMillan, M. Wu, R. Diaz, Z. Hongxing, D. McGinnity, & JT Briggler: The giant salamanders (Cryptobranchidae): Part A. palaeontology , phylogeny, genetics, and morphology. In: Amphibian and Reptile Conservation , Volume 5, No. 4, pp. 17–29, 2012. (digitized version )
  11. ↑ a b P. M. Miklas: The amphibian fauna (Amphibia: Caudata, Anura) of the Upper Miocene site in Götzendorf an der Leitha (southern Vienna Basin, Lower Austria). In: Annals of the Natural History Museum Vienna, Volume 103 A, pp. 161–211, 2002. (digitized version )
  12. ^ F. Westphal: New giant salamander finds (Andrias, Amphibia) from the upper freshwater molasse of Wartenberg in Bavaria. In: Communications from the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Historical Geology. Volume 10, pp. 253–260, 1970. (digitized version)
  13. ↑ a b c F. Westphal: The tertiary and recent Eurasian giant salamanders (genus Andrias, Urodela, Amphibia). In: Journal of the German Geological Society , Volume 111, pp. 739–781, 1959. (Abstract)
  14. ↑ a b c d e f M. Böhme, D. Vasilyan & M. Winklhofer: Habitat tracking, range dynamics and palaeoclimatic significance of Eurasian giant salamanders (Cryptobranchidae) - indications for elevated Central Asian humidity during Cenozoic global warm periods. In: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology , Volume 342–343, pp. 64–72, 2012. (digitized version)
  15. ↑ a b c Petra Maria Tempfer: Andrias Scheuchzeri (Caudata: Cryptobranchidae) from the Upper Miocene (MN7 / 8) site in Mataschen / Styria. Joannea Geol. Paleont. 5: 257–268 (2004) PDF ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.museum-joanneum.at

Web links

Commons : Andrias Scheuchzeri  - collection of images, videos and audio files