San Juan Record | 1920-04-07 | Page 3 | Salamanders of Great Size

SAL salamanders AMANDERS OF GREAT SIZE proof that species specie long extinct sometimes attained a length of five feet in europe some time neo ago bones bone were dug up of some newts which in life had been about five fire feet long every boy la is familiar with wlter newts which he calls sal amanders commonly found in brooks and ponds A specimen five inches boches long Is a big one but five feet they must have been monsters of course these giant newts were of long extinct species it would have bays been interesting to live in those days das when hen so many queer monsters mostly of aquatic habits swarmed the earth they seem to hava been among natures earliest experiments abandoned later there were no mammals then and the supposition Is that all mammals of today including man were nere originally derived from a reptilian ancestry estry we cannot say for certain that this queer reptile which lived about years ago was not actually nn an ancestor of our own it was lug dug up in texas and his has been untied Dimet rodon about eight feet long the most curious thing about it was the enormous fin it carried on its back the flie ribs of the on being a series of bones extending from the vertebrae of what use was this fin Per perhaps balig it was as merely ornu ornamental mental or irmay it may lie be that it was a mc means ins of defense