It lived about 275 million years ago, and its discovery has scientists rethinking some very confident assumptions about when certain ancient creatures disappeared from the planet.<\/p>\n
Tanyka Amnicola Is the New Species That Started With One \u2018Weird\u2019 Fossil<\/p>\n
The way Tanyka came to light is a story worth telling. Researchers found a single twisted jawbone during excavations in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Their first instinct? Something must have gone wrong. Maybe the fossil was crushed during its 275 million years underground. They also thought it belonged to a fish, not a land-dwelling creature.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, we wondered if these fossils might be the remains of a fish,\u201d coauthor Martha Richter recalls, per the Natural History Museum<\/a>. \u201cIt was only once the fossils were properly prepared in the lab that the true nature of Tanyka was clearly revealed to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Then the team kept digging and found eight more jawbones with that same twist. One oddly shaped jaw could be a fluke. Nine? That\u2019s a pattern.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really strange animal, and the weird twist in the jaw drove us crazy trying to figure it out. But nine jaws we\u2019ve found have this twist, including the really well-preserved ones, so it\u2019s not a deformation. It\u2019s just the way this animal was,\u201d lead author Jason Pardo added.<\/p>\n Endangered Sea Turtle Washed Ashore Covered in Barnacles. Now She\u2019s Fighting for Her Life<\/a><\/p>\n The repeated structure confirmed the twisted jaw was a natural anatomical feature. And after comparing its traits to known species spanning hundreds of millions of years, the team realized they had something unexpected on their hands.<\/p>\n \u201cBy comparing its anatomical traits to the characteristics of known species from across hundreds of millions of years, we found that this animal was actually a primitive tetrapod after all,\u201d Richter added.<\/p>\n The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/a>.<\/p>\n What Made Tanyka Amnicola’s Jaw So Unique?<\/p>\n Most tetrapods (the group that includes four-limbed animals) have teeth in the upper and lower jaws that face each other. This lets animals slice, cut, and grind food. You can see the setup in everything from a house cat to a crocodile.<\/p>\n Tanyka\u2019s mouth threw out that entire playbook.<\/p>\n Its lower jaw twisted outward from back to front. Some teeth pointed outward and sideways rather than inward toward the opposing jaw.<\/p>\n And lining the inside of the jaw were small grinding teeth called denticles. Researchers believe the denticles in the upper and lower jaws likely rubbed together to grind food \u2014 almost like a built-in mortar and pestle.<\/p>\n Vitor Silva, Field Museum <\/p>\n If you were to run your tongue over the teeth on your lower jaw, you would feel the tops of your teeth facing up towards the roof of your mouth.<\/p>\n In Tanyka, the twisted lower jaw meant the teeth were pointed out to the sides. The part of the jawbone that normally faces the tongue is pointed upwards.<\/p>\n![\"Scientists](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/199ad2a063037cad3c6c6fff379dd723.jpeg\"\/)
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