Marine vertebrates from the Permian–Triassic boundary

The Permian–Triassic mass extinction was the largest extinction event in Earth’s history, completely reshaping marine and terrestrial ecosystems. However, Early Triassic marine vertebrate fossils are rare, limiting our understanding of how this event influenced their evolution. A new study describes a marine vertebrate assemblage from the Dolomites, including a vertebra probably belonging to a saurosphargid—an armoured marine reptile related to sauropterygians. The new discovery suggests that saurosphargids were already widespread in the Early Triassic and may have originated as early as the Late Permian.

Figure: Reconstruction of a shallow-marine ecosystem from the Early Triassic of the Dolomites featuring a saurosphargid marine reptile (artist: Davide Bonadonna).