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An international research team from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and from Buenos Aires and Washington D.C. has identified a new fossil from central Germany, offering fresh insights into the early evolutionary history of archosauromorphs.

The 255-million-year-old fossil was discovered in the 1990s in the famous Korbach fossil locality in the National Geopark GrenzWelten and has now for the first time been examined. The discovery helps fill a crucial gap in the fossil record just before the end-Permian mass extinction, the most catastrophic extinction event in Earth's history. The results have been in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

The upper Permian Korbach fissure filling in northern Hesse represents a unique fossil locality, providing a rare window into continental tetrapod ecosystems from low paleolatitudes (20°N) just before the end-Permian mass extinction. Korbach is best known for the hyperabundance of the early mammal-relative Procynosuchus, the so-called Korbach Dachshund.

However, the scientists have now described a previously unknown species of archosauromorph reptile based on a single, well-preserved neck vertebra found in the Korbach fissure filling. The fossil displays distinct anatomical features that led the researchers to designate it as the holotype of a new genus and species: Manistropheus kulicki.

"This discovery is especially significant because Permian archosauromorphs are extremely rare, with only five previously recognized species known from that period," says Dr. Martín Ezcurra, lead author of the study. "Manistropheus kulicki gives us a clearer view of how diverse this group already was before the mass extinction."

The vertebra is characterized by an elongated, parallelogram-shaped centrum and a unique lunate depression laterally and near the anterior rim of the vertebra, which also gives the new genus its name—from Old Norse Máni, the personification of the moon in Germanic mythology, and Greek stropheus, vertebra.

Therefore, the specimen shows similarities to early archosauromorphs but also distinct features not seen in other known Permo-Triassic diapsids. A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis places Manistropheus kulicki at the base of Archosauromorpha, suggesting it was among the earliest members of this major reptile lineage.

The study also used morphological diversity analysis to assess variety in neck vertebrae across time. Results indicate that archosauromorphs were already morphologically diverse before the extinction, and that their neck anatomy diversified rapidly in the early Triassic—faster than other parts of the skeleton, according to previous research.

"This fossil not only reveals a new species but also supports the idea that there was a 'cryptic' diversity of archosauromorphs in the Permian," notes Prof. Hans-Dieter Sues from the Smithsonian Institution, leader of the excavations at the Korbach fissure in the 1990s and co-author of the study.

Co-author Prof. Jörg Fröbisch from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin emphasizes, "The Korbach locality is proving to be a key site for understanding terrestrial life at low latitudes in the supercontinent Pangea just before the biggest extinction in Earth's history."

The discovery underscores the importance of continued paleontological exploration in lesser-known fossil sites, particularly those that may preserve glimpses of ecosystems on the brink of extinction.