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Description
A small shoal of small palaeonisciforme fishes, Boreosomus reuterskioldi, quickly scatter 250 million years ago during the early Triassic period of what is now the Kongressfjellet formation in Svalbard. The ocean that covered this area in the Triassic was hoke to a wide variety of extinct fish, many of which are preyed upon by the large marine amphibian Aphaneramma rostratum like the individual here.

First of hopefully more drawings made for Triassic Week (youtu.be/9fUeaxzXr-E ). I have actually thought about drawing Aphaneramma for quite a few months now but only now have i got my ass up and made it.

Amphibians have been around for around 370 million years, first appearing in the Devonian period and in the long time they have existed they colonised many habitats, and most live in and around as the majority need water to lay their eggs in and have skin that dries out easily. However, almost all amphibians ever were freshwater, with extremely few able to tolerate saltwater. However, one extinct family of temnospondyl amphibians had mostly marine members that lived almost exclusively at sea. The Trematosauridae family first appeared in the Triassic and possibly lived up until the middle Jurassic, though the Jurassic material isn't very confidently assigned to this group and better material of trematosaurs is confined to the Triassic. It is unknown what body adaptations the trematosaurs would have had to tolerate saltwater that kills most amphibians since the soft tissue generally isn't preserved. The trematosaurs commonly grew above a meter long and had body shapes quite similar to extant gharials, with long slender snouts to hunt fish. One of the largest trematosaurs was Aphaneramma, a genus with multiple species found in Madagascar, Pakistan, Russia and the Svalbard archipelago of Norway. Members of this genus were around 2 meters long and had skulls around 80 centimeters long.

The type species of the Aphaneramma genus is A. rostratum, known from the Kongressfjellet Formation of Svalbard (formerly called Spitzbergen), Norway. While the area is currently well within the arctic circle and kinda cold, it would have been much warmer in the Triassic and the are was covered with ocean that the amphibian lived in. Many fish species are known from the Kongressfjellet Formation, including the palaeonisciforme Boreosomus shown here, a member if the family Ptycholepidae that grew a bit over 20 centimeters long, as well as quite a few species of coelacanths. Most of these fish didn't grow over a meter long though, so at 2 meters long Aphaneramma would have been able to hunt most of them and may have been an apex predator of the region (this was the early Triassic, marine reptiles aren't that large or common yet and most sharks weren't huge and still recovering from the Great Dying). However the Kongressfjellet was also home to Birgeria aldingeri a large predatory fish that grew over 2 meters long (I drew it before btw www.deviantart.com/olmagon/art… ) and was also a predator, though it probably didn't hunt full-grown Aphaneramma. They may have occasionally competed for prey, but given how the fish has large sharp teeth while the amphibian has narrow jaws and small teeth, I guess there was some niche partitioning here preventing that.

First Boreosomus on DA btw!

Description
A small shoal of small palaeonisciforme fishes, Boreosomus reuterskioldi, quickly scatter 250 million years ago during the early Triassic period of what is now the Kongressfjellet formation in Svalbard. The ocean that covered this area in the Triassic was hoke to a wide variety of extinct fish, many of which are preyed upon by the large marine amphibian Aphaneramma rostratum like the individual here.

First of hopefully more drawings made for Triassic Week (youtu.be/9fUeaxzXr-E ). I have actually thought about drawing Aphaneramma for quite a few months now but only now have i got my ass up and made it.

Amphibians have been around for around 370 million years, first appearing in the Devonian period and in the long time they have existed they colonised many habitats, and most live in and around as the majority need water to lay their eggs in and have skin that dries out easily. However, almost all amphibians ever were freshwater, with extremely few able to tolerate saltwater. However, one extinct family of temnospondyl amphibians had mostly marine members that lived almost exclusively at sea. The Trematosauridae family first appeared in the Triassic and possibly lived up until the middle Jurassic, though the Jurassic material isn't very confidently assigned to this group and better material of trematosaurs is confined to the Triassic. It is unknown what body adaptations the trematosaurs would have had to tolerate saltwater that kills most amphibians since the soft tissue generally isn't preserved. The trematosaurs commonly grew above a meter long and had body shapes quite similar to extant gharials, with long slender snouts to hunt fish. One of the largest trematosaurs was Aphaneramma, a genus with multiple species found in Madagascar, Pakistan, Russia and the Svalbard archipelago of Norway. Members of this genus were around 2 meters long and had skulls around 80 centimeters long.

The type species of the Aphaneramma genus is A. rostratum, known from the Kongressfjellet Formation of Svalbard (formerly called Spitzbergen), Norway. While the area is currently well within the arctic circle and kinda cold, it would have been much warmer in the Triassic and the are was covered with ocean that the amphibian lived in. Many fish species are known from the Kongressfjellet Formation, including the palaeonisciforme Boreosomus shown here, a member if the family Ptycholepidae that grew a bit over 20 centimeters long, as well as quite a few species of coelacanths. Most of these fish didn't grow over a meter long though, so at 2 meters long Aphaneramma would have been able to hunt most of them and may have been an apex predator of the region (this was the early Triassic, marine reptiles aren't that large or common yet and most sharks weren't huge and still recovering from the Great Dying). However the Kongressfjellet was also home to Birgeria aldingeri a large predatory fish that grew over 2 meters long (I drew it before btw www.deviantart.com/olmagon/art… ) and was also a predator, though it probably didn't hunt full-grown Aphaneramma. They may have occasionally competed for prey, but given how the fish has large sharp teeth while the amphibian has narrow jaws and small teeth, I guess there was some niche partitioning here preventing that.

First Boreosomus on DA btw!