Wednesday, 8 November 2023 – 16:08 WIB
VIVA Tekno – In Europe there is Norse mythology where the wild beast Jormungandr lives to destroy the Nine Worlds. Last week, scientists discovered traces of its existence. Jormungandr walhallaensis, that’s what scientists named it.
Reporting from The NY Times, Wednesday, November 8 2023, an animal that lived in the Mesozoic era and was declared a new species and genus of mosasaur. Jormungandr is the largest wild animal in Norse mythology that hides in the depths of the sea.
The beast Jormungandr
He is destined to wipe out the Nine Worlds at the end of time. So now, he is just waiting until the time comes to complete his mission.
The Norse tribes also believe in the existence of the paradise Valhalla. Meanwhile, in North Dakota, there is a small town called Walhalla which is close to the location where the Jormungandr fossil was discovered.
The Jormungandr fossil was removed from the earth in 2015 in the form of a skull and jaw. However, after observations that took almost 8 years, researchers were still filled with many questions.
“There are lots of papers published on dinosaurs every year, but not many papers published on mosasaurs every year because there are so few people in the world working on them,” said Michael Caldwell, a leading mosasaur expert who did not contribute to the paper.
Amelia Zietlow, lead author of the paper, discovered that Jormungandr inherited unique physiological traits from several genera of mosasaurs, namely the school bus-sized mosasaurs and clidastes, a smaller genus of mosasaurs.
Mosasaur itself defines a marine reptile predator that has roamed the seas since 100 million years ago. Their shape is like a lizard with fins that allow them to swim. Some species can grow up to 18 meters in length.
On the other hand, the results of analysis via computer software revealed that the Jormungandr fossil did not match the mosasaur fossil records that had been found previously.
The beast Jormungandr
So it can be concluded that the possibility that this ancient animal fossil comes from a completely new species. In fact, it is a new genus that crosses between clidastes and mosasaurus.
Michael on his occasion said that the Jormungandr fossil looked more like the genus Clidastes. For this reason, the name is more suitable as Clidastes walhallaensis rather than Jormungandr walhallaensis.
But as long as what is found is only a skull and jaw, scientists will continue to be haunted by the struggle about who this ancient animal was. Until now, scientists have only been able to reveal details about how these animals lived and died.
The animal, estimated to be up to 7 meters long, had teeth suitable for preying on fish and other small creatures in the Western Interior Seaway.
Bite marks were found on its spine, indicating that the animal had been attacked shortly before its death. Even the fact that no other fossils of its body parts were found indicates that it was eaten by another predator.
That’s all scientists have discovered so far. Considering that mosasaurs are still rarely studied even though their fossils are scattered all over the world, Amelia hopes that the paper she wrote can spark interest among scientists in studying mosasaurs.
“Of the 4,000 mosasaurs in North America, only about 5 percent are included in the scientific literature,” said Amelia as quoted by The New York Times
2023-11-08 09:08:01
#Geger #Fossil #Signs #Times
