Twisted-Jaw Ancient Reptile Thrills Scientists

Quick Smiles:

• Unique plant-grinding teeth discovered in 275-million-year-old fossils from Brazil.
• Tanyka named from Indigenous Guaraní word for jaw, a living fossil like a platypus.
• Early herbivore with cheese-grater jaws highlights evolution’s wonders.

Fossilized remains of Tanyka amnicola, a plant-eating reptile, emerged from a dry riverbed in Brazil’s Amazon jungle.

This 275-million-year-old creature featured an oddly twisted jaw with sideways-facing teeth and denticles for grinding vegetation.

“The jaw has this weird twist that drove us crazy trying to figure it out,” said study lead author Dr. Jason Pardo of the Field Museum in Chicago.

“We were scratching our heads over this for years… So it’s not a deformation, it’s just the way the animal was made.”

Tanyka belonged to stem tetrapods, persisting as a living fossil amid evolving modern lineages, possibly resembling a salamander with a longer snout.

Estimated at up to three feet long, it thrived in lakes during the Permian in Gondwana, showcasing early herbivory.

“In the sense that Tanyka was a remaining member of the stem tetrapod lineage… Tanyka is a little like a platypus: it was a living fossil in its time,” Dr. Pardo added.

“We expect the denticles on the lower jaw were rubbing up against similar teeth on the upper side of the mouth,” he explained of its rasping feeding method.

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