Prehistoric Amphibians Able to Regenerate Limbs

Photo: AUREAPTERUS/ISTOCKPHOTO A new study shows that the prehistoric amphibians were not all that different from their modern day relatives. Limb regeneration was found in animals estimated to be 290 million years old.

The findings suggest that some salamander ancestors had the ability to regenerate body parts nearly 80 million years before the first salamander existed. The results “show that salamander-like regeneration is not something that is salamander specific, but was instead widespread in the evolutionary past,” says study coauthor Nadia Fröbisch, a paleontologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin.

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