Koolasuchus: Last of the Giant Amphibians

Season 1 Episode 3 explores what life was like for Koolasuchus cleelandi!
Learn about the science and scientific speculation behind Koolasuchus.
Famously known from the BBC documentary 'Walking with Dinosaurs'.
This Australian temnospondyl lived in Victoria 120 million years ago. It was an aquatic predator that looked like a gigantic salamander.

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0:00 Introduction
01:04 Local Geology
01:24 Fossils
02:33 Origin Story
04:24 Habitat
05:09 Physical Appearance
06:37 Predatory Lifestyle
9:11 Reproduction
10:24 Life Cycle
11:29 Surviving Freezing Temperatures
13:03​ Extinction of Koolasuchus
16:01 Final Thoughts
17:28 Credits
18:10 Reference List

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[PrehistoricAustralia]

The original script of 'Koolasuchus: Last of the Giant Amphibians' is now available to download on Patreon!


Includes Koolasuchus paleoart + a Reference List for your further reading 🙂


You can gain access by donating as little as $7 a month on Patreon:

[harnawazboparai]

Great work here Prehistoric Australia! I don't know how to feel about this. It's rather sad to think Koolasuchus is extinct; even though it went extinct long before humans evolved. Such an amazing creature! Its body plan reminds me a lot of the Chinese and Japanese Giant Salamander species from Asia, but on a much larger scale.

[theraptorore]

I'm very impressed by the amount of info you collected on Koolasuchus, congrats!!

[pedrord]

Koolasuchus starts it's fame journey with Walking with Dinosaurs and now, thanks to the Jurassic games (Alive and The Game), he is a superstar !!! ✨⭐✨

[koolas_]

Great video, very interesting. Needs more views! :)

[megamustaine]

Great video spirits of the ice forest walking with dinosaurs was my favorite episode, it was kinda different than the others .

[cinthialara]

Gret video by the way what are the close relatives of kooalasuchus, diplocaulus ando sarcosuchus?

[empathytobacco]

Please do an exclusive series on Australian megafauna, they are extremely interesting and i think more and more members of the general public today are fascinated by them, you can tell from the last exclusive and thorough documentary about them (Death of the Megabeasts) on youtube managed to attrack almost 3 million views.

Also not much is known about them in public because of the extremely lack of info in popular media (especially on youtube). Like i stated above the last thorough documentary about them was the "Death of The Megabeasts" but it was way back in 2008. PBS eons don't even cover them. I think with your predefined identity as the source of knowledge for Austalia's prehistory, this could potentially be a great growth opportunity for your channel in the platform's paleontology space by filling this niche. Just like all successful strategy of evolution right? Haha.

Anyway just a suggestion, i will be very happy if you would make those. I'll definitely subcribe and follow your content religiously. I LOVE Australian megafauna and i would like to know more about it in any way possible. It's sad to see them highly underrepresented on youtube. Keep it up!

[dominiclindus]

Fantastic work again from you and the team Andrew! I was looking forward to this episode, Koolasuchus is one of my favourites. I'd love to interview Leslie Kool one day and get her to recount the story of its discovery. Keep up the great work!

[rileyernst]

I think it is reasonble to suggest that koolasuchus was oppotunistic. It may have sat on the bottom of the stream and ambushed prey, but a swimming or drinking dinosaur that is big enough to easily nab? I think it would have went for it.

[Abominatrix]

This is a fascinating video. Greatly educational whilst also not getting boring at all! I think I'll check this channel out!

[valentinfejes]

Another amazing video! I'll definitely write an article about our big headed highlander amphibian in the future! But I wonder... how big were those crocs who co-existed with Koolasuchus? And where did they come from?

[TyrannoNoddy]

Always had a soft spot for Koolasuchus, myself, if only because it was such an odd specimen compared to other Mesozoic fauna. I wonder why the temnospondyls not only lived on in southern Gondwana (if cold climate is a factor I'd assume they could be in Antarctica as well, shame any fossils would be buried under mountains of ice lol) but also in Asia. I recall China having a more temperate climate in some parts of the Jurassic and Cretaceous (eg the Jehol biota), maybe that was a factor? But of course it was still warm enough for crocodyliformes to coexist who knows what's up.

As for some favourite extinct Australian critters, I've always gravitated to Mekosuchines (esp Quinkana and Trilophosuchus) and Propleopines (particularly Ekaltadeta), the former because it really proved how diverse crocodiles could be even until mere millennia ago, and the latter because I love the image of the soft fuzzy kangaroo being turned into some fanged flesh eating weirdo that probably caught whatever was small enough to eat.

[wenthulk]

The Japanese Giant Salamander is a sedentary ambush predator too

[jacksonseyl]

I thought it was the crocodiles that drove the giant amphibians to extinction.

[piterkristianto]

nice explanation... I know this last giant amphibians from BBC walking with dinosaurs

[rileyernst]

The coolest prehistoric Australian animal i have come face to face with is the still as yet unnamed Richmond Pelycotilid. Fossil came out of the ground fully articulated. Its easy to imagine as a swift and nimble sea dragon of the Eromunga.

[wolfgangmercury]

Very nice videos. This channel deserves a ton more subscribers.

[james]

if you can, can anyone tell me who or what was the largest amphibian of the Jurassic period anywhere at all, i figured best to ask in a newer video

[tulliusexmisc]

I am very skeptical of the idea of suction feeding in Koolasuchus and other temnospndyls.

The only vertebrates that use suction feeding very much today (not counting specialised cases such as flamingos and suckling mammals) are actinopterygian fishes. In neopterygians and especially in various teleost lineages, we see a bunch of adaptations for suction: a rounded, highly kinetic skull with a protrusible maxilla forming a relatively small mouth.

Temnospondyls don't show any similar adaptations, in fact the trend is in the opposite direction. Early tetrapodomorphs inherited a kinetic skull that could provide some suction, primarily to ventilate their internal gills. Most later groups, including the temnospondyls, reduced or entirely eliminated the kinesis, at least in adults. And instead of a small mouth, a tempnospondyl skull is almost all mouth.

It has been proposed that some temnospondyls such as Gerrothorax created suction in a different way, lifting the upper jaw like a killer toilet seat to suck in water and prey. This seems less effective as the suction would have been spread over a wide area like a filter feeder, instead of concentrating near a single target. There is also the obvious question of why closing the jaws would not just spit the prey back out again.