This giant ichthyosaur fossil, which was recently discovered, is quite large, with its skull alone being nearly two meters tall. With a head of that size, it is estimated that his body length is more than 17 meters and weighs about 45 tons.
Ichthyosaurs were large, extinct marine reptiles that dominated the oceans more than 200 million years ago. Analysis of the skull of this particular ichthyosaur fossil has revealed a new species, Cymbospondylus youngorum.
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“Ichthyosaurs reached giant body sizes in a very short time, evolutionarily only about 3 million years. By comparison, whales took about 45 million years to reach their largest body size,” Lars Schmitz, professor of biology in the WM Keck Department of Science was quoted as saying. CNN, Monday (12/27/2021).
Schmitz worked with an international team of researchers to analyze fossil , identified ichthyosaurs as a new species named Cymbospondylus youngorum. It is part of a group of reptiles that returned to the sea during the Triassic Period, the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs and fully adapted to marine life.
Ichthyosaur fossils found in Nevada were found in rocks that have preserved cross-sections of existing fauna about five million years after their death. “It happened about 252 million years ago, when 81% of the world’s marine life became extinct,” he said.
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When the skull was found, the research team was initially unsure how an animal of this size could have evolved and survived so quickly after Earth’s most severe extinction event. “The oceans of that period were very different from our modern oceans,” explains Schmitz.
The findings give Schmitz and his research team new insights into how fast evolution can occur and lead to diversity. ” Fossil this is an example of how fast evolution can produce diversity,” said Schmitz.
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