You are in the murky riverbeds of North America, 295 million years ago.

A drought has spread across the landscape. The summer sun was relentless, baking the banks of the creek until the mud turned into a mosaic of cracked clay.

But out on the land, there is movement. You soon spotted several small shapes, each salamander-like, as long as a cat, and with a strange, boomerang form for its head, crawling on the mud burying themselves in it to stay hydrated, waiting for the rain to return.

You have just found a small group of Diplocaulus, the most common amphibian species found in these Permian lands, and it is a great time to document how they behave during the drought.