Foreign Media: New Fossils in Africa Reveal the Appearance of Life Just Before Earth's Largest Mass Extinction
An international team of scientists from the University of Washington and the Field Museum of Natural History spent over 15 years studying fossils in Africa to understand the state of life during the Permian period (299 million to 252 million years ago).
This period ended with the most severe mass extinction event in Earth's history, "The Great Dying," which wiped out about 70% of terrestrial species and a much larger proportion of marine species. The research team discovered fossils of animals that thrived before this disaster in three basins of the ancient southern continent of Pangea, including saber-toothed carnivores, burrowing foragers, and large salamander-like creatures.
These findings fill the gap in the previous fossil records mainly based on the Karoo Basin in South Africa, providing a more comprehensive global perspective for understanding this mass extinction. After all fossil studies are completed, they will be returned to Tanzania and Zambia.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1840419243814920/
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