Ancient Amphibians Found Near Kurty After 50 Years

They were found thanks to field diaries written half a century ago, Orda.kz reports, citing the Institute of Zoology of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Background

The latest expedition took place from October 4 to 12 near the village of Kurty in the Almaty region, about 70 kilometers from Almaty.

This is one of the few continental Paleozoic sites in Kazakhstan. The rocks exposed here date back to the Permian period, approximately 280 million years ago. This means that the organisms found in Kurty predate the age of dinosaurs,
The institute says.

In the 1970s, researchers from the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Paleontological Institute conducted several expeditions, uncovering more than 400 prints of ancient amphibians.

To the researchers' surprise, all the specimens collected turned out to be representatives of a single species, named Utegenia shpinari. The reasons for such limited species diversity, or rather, its complete absence, remain a subject of scientific debate,
experts shared.

After those expeditions, no further research was conducted because the exact coordinates were lost — until now, when they were rediscovered in the old field diaries.

A Return to Kurty

During this first expedition in 50 years, scientists from the Institute of Zoology found around 120 skeletons of ancient amphibians, most likely belonging to Utegenia shpinari.

Utegenia were tailed amphibians from the order Seymouriamorpha. They lived in shallow freshwater bodies. Adults reached 30 cm in length and resembled modern newts and salamanders. Juveniles had gills like axolotls,
 The institute describes the creatures.

Researchers also discovered imprints of ancient plants, including tree-like horsetails and Calamites.

These are not the first prehistoric finds in Kazakhstan this year — mammoth bones were uncovered in several regions earlier this fall, and dinosaur remains were found in the Qyzylorda region.

Original Author: Igor Ulitin