Long before dinosaurs ruled the planet, their ancestors trekked across 10,000 miles of searing desert and volcanic wastelands—surviving Earth’s worst extinction event to dominate the Triassic world.
Key Points at a Glance
- Ancient archosauromorph reptiles crossed 10,000 miles of uninhabitable terrain
- New modelling method (TARDIS) integrates fossil gaps, maps, and evolutionary data
- Survival of these reptiles after the Permian extinction led to rise of dinosaurs
- Their resilience may have given them a major evolutionary advantage
Imagine a world scorched by relentless heat, its land split open by volcanic eruptions, skies choked with ash, and life clinging on after the deadliest mass extinction in Earth’s history. In this harsh Triassic landscape—thought too inhospitable for survival—small, hardy reptiles were not just surviving. They were moving. And thriving.
A groundbreaking study by researchers at the University of Birmingham and the University of Bristol has upended assumptions about how early reptiles, specifically archosauromorphs, spread across the ancient supercontinent of Pangaea. Using a novel modelling method called TARDIS, scientists combined fossil records, evolutionary trees, and paleogeographical reconstructions to reveal that these creatures traversed up to 10,000 miles through the tropical ‘dead zones’ following the end-Permian mass extinction, 252 million years ago.
Previously, these equatorial zones were considered lifeless heat traps, inhospitable to even the hardiest of reptiles. But this study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, reveals that archosauromorphs not only crossed these zones—they likely used them as corridors to access new ecosystems and niches across the globe.
“Amid the worst climatic event in Earth’s history, where more species died than at any period since, life still survived,” said Dr. Joseph Flannery-Sutherland, lead author of the study. “It’s likely that this ability to survive the inhospitable tropics may have conferred an advantage that saw them thrive in the Triassic world.”
These early reptiles were forerunners to dinosaurs, crocodiles, and modern birds. While many were no larger than a house cat, their physiological resilience appears to have set the stage for their descendants to evolve into some of the most successful groups of animals in Earth’s history.
Professor Michael Benton, senior author from the University of Bristol, emphasized the importance of this discovery: “By combining the fossils with reconstructed maps of the ancient world, in the context of evolutionary trees, we provide a way of overcoming the challenges of limited fossil evidence.”
The method, nicknamed TARDIS, essentially lets scientists peer into the ancient world like time travelers, inferring movements through both space and time to fill in fossil record gaps with environmental and evolutionary context.
This endurance, this capacity to cross a fiery and desolate world, may be the very trait that determined which lineages rose to dominance and which were left in the fossil dust. It’s a humbling reminder that, in the aftermath of catastrophe, survival often belongs to the boldest migrants.
Source: University of Birmingham
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