The burrow revealed two unrelated vertebrate animals nestled together
and fossilised after being trapped by a flash flood event. Facing harsh
climatic conditions subsequent to the Permo-Triassic (P-T) mass
extinction, the amphibian
Broomistega and the mammal forerunner
Thrinaxodon cohabited in a burrow.
Scanning shows that the amphibian, which was suffering from broken
ribs, crawled into a sleeping mammal's shelter for protection. This
research suggests that short periods of dormancy, called aestivation, in
addition to burrowing behaviour, may have been a crucial adaptation
that allowed mammal ancestors to survive the P-T extinction.
The international team of scientists was led by Dr Vincent Fernandez
from Wits University, South Africa and the European Synchrotron
Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. The other authors from
Wits University include Prof. Bruce Rubidge (Director of the newly
formed Palaeosciences Centre of Excellence at Wits), Dr Fernando Abdala
and Dr Kristian Carlson. Other authors include Dr Della Collins Cook
(Indiana University); Dr Adam Yates (Museum of Central Australia) and
Dr. Paul Tafforeau (ESRF).
After many impressive results obtained on fossils, synchrotron
imaging has led to revived interest in the studies of the numerous
fossilised burrows discovered in the Karoo Basin of South Africa and
dated to 250 million years ago. The first attempt to investigate one of
these burrow-casts surprisingly revealed a world-first association of
two unrelated animals.
The fossil was recovered from sedimentary rock strata in the Karoo
Basin. It dates from 250 million years ago, at the beginning of the
Triassic Period. At that time, the ecosystem was recovering from the
Permo-Triassic mass extinction that wiped out most of life on Earth. In
the Pangea Supercontinent context, what is now South Africa was an
enclave in the southern half called Gondwana. It was the scene of
pronounced climatic warming and increased seasonality marked by
monsoonal rainfall. To survive this harsh environment, many animals,
including mammal-like reptiles (mammal forerunners), developed a digging
behaviour, attested by the numerous fossilised burrow casts discovered
in the Karoo Basin. These casts have long been thought to enclose
fossilised remains, triggering interest from palaeontologists. Early
this year, an international group of scientists started to research the
contents of these burrows using X-ray synchrotron computed
microtomography.
Two burrow casts were selected from the collection at Wits to be
scanned using the state-of-the-art facility at the European Synchrotron
Radiation Facility (ESRF). Using the unique properties of the X-ray beam
which enables non-destructive probing, the scan of the first burrow
started to reveal the skull of a mammal-like reptile called
Thrinaxodon, an animal previously reported in another burrow.
As the scan progressed, the three-dimensional reconstruction
displayed results beyond expectations: the mammal-like reptile was
accompanied by an amphibian
Broomistega, belonging to the extinct group of Temnospondyl.
"While discovering the results we were amazed by the quality of the
images," says lead author Fernandez, "but the real excitement came when
we discovered a second set of teeth completely different from that of
the mammal-like reptile. It was really something else."
Besides the pristine preservation of the two skeletons, the team
focused on the reasons explaining such an unusual co-habitation.
Fernandez explains: "Burrow-sharing by different species exists in the
modern world, but it corresponds to a specific pattern. For example, a
small visitor is not going to disturb the host. A large visitor can be
accepted by the host if it provides some help, like predator vigilance.
But neither of these patterns corresponds to what we have discovered in
this fossilised burrow."
The scientists gathered all the information to try to reconstitute
the events that led to this incredible fossil aggregation, testing
scenarios one after another. "It's a fascinating scientific question:
what caused the association of these two organisms in the burrow? One of
the more obvious possibilities is a predator-prey interaction, but we
inspected both skeletons looking for tooth marks or other evidence
implying predation, ultimately finding no support for one having
attempted to feed on the other," says Carlson.
 |
Artist impression of Broomistega seeking shelter in Thrinaxodon's burrow. |
His colleague, Cook, adds that the consecutive broken ribs resulted
from a single, massive trauma. The amphibian clearly survived the injury
for some time because the fractures were healing, but it was surely
quite handicapped. According to Fernandez this
Broomistega is
the first complete skeleton of this rare species that has been
discovered. "It tells us that this individual was a juvenile and mostly
aquatic at that time of its life," he says.
The scientists eventually concluded that the amphibian crawled into
the burrow in response to its poor physical condition but was not
evicted by the mammal-like reptile.
Numerous
Thrinaxodon specimens have been found in South
Africa, many of them fossilised in a curled-up position. Abdala says: "I
have always been fascinated by the preservation of
Thrinaxodon
fossils in a curled-up position that show even tiny bones of the
skeleton preserved. It's as if they were peacefully resting in shelters
at the time of death."
The shelters prevented disturbance of the skeletal remains from
scavengers and weathering. "We also think it might reflect a state of
torpor called aestivation in response to aridity and absence of food
resources," Abdala says.
Piecing all the clues together, the team finally elucidated the
enigmatic association, concluding that "the mammal-like reptile,
Thrinaxodon,
was most probably aestivating in its burrow, a key adaptation response
together with a burrowing behaviour which enabled our distant ancestors
to survive the most dramatic mass extinction event. This state of torpor
explains why the amphibian was not chased out of the burrow," says
Rubidge.
Both animals were finally entrapped in the burrow by a sudden flood
and preserved together in the sediments for 250 million years.
Tafforeau says: "Thanks to the unique possibilities for high quality
imaging of fossils developed during the last decade at the ESRF, these
unique specimens remain untouched, protected by their mineral matrix.
Who knows what kind of information we'll be able to obtain from them in
the future and which would have been completely lost if the specimen had
been prepared out of its burrow cast?"