Paleontology: New Life for Gondwanaland

Serendipity struck a group of Ohio State University geologists last December as they picked away at the stratified sediment in an ancient stream bed high in the frigid Transantarctic Mountains. Investigating rock strata to learn more about the Antarctic ice sheet, they uncovered a small fossilized bone fragment with continent-sized implications.

Asked by the Ohio State scientists to identify the 2½-in.-long fossil, Paleontologist Edwin Colbert, of the American Museum of Natural History, last week announced that it was a bit of jaw bone from a 3 to 4 ft. salamander-like creature...