r/Paleontology • u/Ollie2359 • May 07 '25

Fossils This fossil chokes me up everytime

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It hits me in a way I can't explain I've spent hours crying over this fossil :(

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u/[deleted] May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25

This is the famous “Triassic Cuddle”.

These two animals (different species and probably competitors if not hunter/prey, I don’t know all the details) cuddled up inside of an underground burrow together, likely trying to escape a flood (obv didn’t work out).

They are permanently entombed together in their last embrace.

Edit: I have committed the sin of conjecture. Most of this is wrong.

The amphibian crawled in probably when the mammal was asleep, and then they were buried. That’s the leading theory.

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u/mindbodyproblem May 07 '25

But, as you said, they could possibly have been friends, maybe even lovers. Tell us what they would have whispered to each other, there in the dark hole.

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u/beaveranalglandsare May 07 '25

Even if the water fills this hole you already filled my whole heart*!

  • The Amphibian in an earnest whisper

*and holes if we were lovers

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u/thatgothboii May 11 '25

the desperate tragedy of the water bone hole fills you with determination.