INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
In shallow waters about 242 million years ago, a strange marine reptile built unlike any other animal ever on Earth hunted for fish and
squid, using an inordinately elongated neck to ambush prey
Suddenly and violently, its life ended & decapitated by a powerful predator.Scientists for two centuries have suspected that prehistoric
marine reptiles like this one, named Tanystropheus, possessing very long necks were highly vulnerable to such attacks.A fresh examination of
Tanystropheus fossils unearthed in Switzerland decades ago on a mountain called Monte San Giorgio has provided the first unambiguous
evidence to demonstrate it, Reuters reported.The researchers studied neck and head remains of two species of Tanystropheus, detecting bite
marks and other signs of trauma indicating decapitation.The larger species, the one that ate fish and squid, reached 20 feet (6 meters)
long, though this individual was about 13 feet (4 meters)
The smaller species was about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, with teeth indicating a diet of soft-shelled invertebrates like shrimp.The neck of
Tanystropheus was three times longer than its torso
Useful in hunting, extreme neck elongation was common among marine reptiles spanning about 175 million years during the age of dinosaurs
But this came with a price: an obvious weak spot for predation.&These very dramatic examples of predator-prey interaction are extremely rare
in fossils, and they give us an insight into how these animals lived together
It reminds us that these creatures went through dramatic events similar to what we see in nature today & in this case in a particularly
vivid and gruesome way,& said paleontologist Stephan Spiekman of the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany, lead author of
the research published this week in the journal Current Biology.The attacker of the bigger Tanystropheus species likely was a large marine
reptile, the researchers said, perhaps a species of: Cymbospondylus, 33 feet (10 meters) long; Nothosaurus, 23 feet (7 meters) long; or
Helveticosaurus, 12 feet (3.5 meters) long.Various marine reptiles or predatory fish, they said, could have decapitated the smaller
species.Tanystropheus, appearing during the Triassic Period at a time of evolutionary innovation following Earth&s worst mass extinction,
thrived across the northern hemisphere for 10 million years
It was a distant relative of the dinosaurs, which first appeared roughly 230 million years ago.&We think Tanystropheus spent most of its
time in the water, staying in the shallows, using its small head and long neck to ambush prey from the sea floor,& Spiekman
said.&Tanystropheus is so interesting because its body plan is entirely unique in the history of all of life
Sure, there are other animals with a very long neck, but not a neck that is this long, this stiff and this lightweight, with very long,
And then what adds to the weirdness and mystery is that the rest of the animal is also puzzling,& Spiekman said.The post Fossils show
ancient long-necked sea beast&s ‘gruesome& decapitation first appeared on Ariana News.
