It sounds like a paleontological crime scene: dozens of ancient amphibian fossils found buried relatively close together. The bones of the crocodile-sized creatures — known as metoposaurid temnospondyls — lie intact. What brought them there? What killed them? Why did the fossils remain undisturbed?
Researchers report a detailed analysis of the single-largest collection of the species’ fossils found together in Wyoming in the journal PLOS ONE. But the survey of what appears to be a mass die-off provokes more questions than it provides answers.
The site is especially interesting because it appears to offer what Aaron Kufner, a University of Wisconsin, Madison paleontologist and first author of the study, called in a press release “…a snapshot of a single population rather than an accumulation over time.”
Although the collection more than doubles the known number of individual Buettnererpeton bakeri fossils, it doesn’t provide any solid answers about what brought them ...
