AUGUST 19, 2015
by John Hopton
A fossil of a salamander found in the Caribbean and encased in amber is causing excitement for several reasons, Discovery News reported.
This discovery made scientists giggly 20-30 million years after its death, because 1) It is the first salamander ever to be found encased in amber, 2) It proves that salamanders once lived in the Caribbean, and 3) It is evidence of a species (now extinct) which was previously unknown.
Scientists from Oregon State University (OSU) and the University of California at Berkeley were working in an amber mine in a mountainous region between Puerto Plata and Santiago in Dominican Republic when they found the specimen.
"There are very few salamander fossils of any type, and no one has ever found a salamander preserved in amber," said George Poinar, Jr., a professor emeritus in the OSU College of Science. "And finding it in Dominican amber was especially unexpected, because today no salamanders, even living ones, have ever been found in that region."
The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Paleodiversity, have named the creature Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae.
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