Researchers examining an almost complete skeleton of a 240-million-year-old “mega-predator” have found another large reptile in its stomach.
According to a study published in the scientific journal iScience, the 15-foot-long ichthyosaur, known as the Guizhouichthyosaurus, had wandered a nearly 12-foot-long thalattosaurs.
The ichthyosaur probably died shortly after he devoured his prey.
“We have never found articulated remains of a large reptile in the stomach of giant predators from the age of dinosaurs, such as marine reptiles and dinosaurs,” University of California professor Davis and co-author Ryosuke Motani said in a statement. “We’d always guessed from tooth shape and jaw design that these predators must have fed on large prey, but now we have immediate evidence that they did.”
Close-up of the abdominal area of a fossil ichthyosaur, Guizhouichthyosaurus, showing part of the body of another large marine reptile. The ichthyosaur had its prey wandered shortly before it died and became fossil. This is the oldest known direct evidence of mega-predation, as a large animal eating another large animal. (Credit: Da-Yong Jiang, et al.)
65-MILLION YEAR-OLD ‘ICHTHYOSAUR’ SKELETON FOUND ON BEACH THEN FROM MAN’S BEST FRIEND
The fossil remains of the ichthyosaur were found in 2010 in southwestern China.
Image photo: view of an artist of the ichthyosaur.
(Todd Marshall)
Ichthyosaur means “fish lizard”, a suitable way to describe the giant sea habitat. The first known ichthyosaurs had long, flexible bodies and swims probably similar to modern eels, according to an article from the University of California Berkeley.
Stomach contents of a fossil ichthyosaur show that it ate another reptile just as large as itself just before it died. (Credit: University of California, Davis)
Given the size of the prey, it is possible that the ichthyosaur could be redistributed as an “apex predator”, and placed at the top of the food chain during the early part of the Mesozoic Age.
“Marine predators of air-breathing have been essential components of the marine ecosystem since the Triassic,” the researchers wrote in the study’s summary. Many of them are considered the apex predators, but without direct evidence – dietary needs are usually based on circumstantial evidence, such as tooth shape. Here we report a fossil that probably represents the oldest evidence of predation on megafauna, that is, animals similar to as larger than humans, by marine tetrapods – a thalattosaur (∼4 m in total length) in the stomach of a Middle Triassic ichthyosaur (∼5 m). “
The researchers continued: “The predator grabbed teeth, but the body of the prey wandered in one or more pieces. There were many more Mesozoic marine reptiles with similar teeth, so megafaunal predation was probably more widespread than currently thought.”
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Some discovered ichthyosaur fossils have shown that the creatures were born to give rise to living, young evolution. Unlike dinosaurs, with whom ichthyosaurs were confused, they did not lay eggs.
It is not yet clear which group of modern vertebrates are closest relative to ichthyosaurs, but researchers have suggested that they may have been an offshoot of diapsids, which include dinosaurs, birds, and pterosaurs. Others have suggested that it may actually be a distant relative of sea turtles.
Researchers are learning more about ichthyosaurs thanks to recent fossil discoveries.
A number of ichthyosaurs fossils have recently been discovered. In April 2018, the massive jawbone of a 205 million year old ichthyosaur was discovered in the southwest of England, making it “one of the largest animals that has ever lived.” The fossils of a 180 million year old ichthyosaur, which also contained evidence of blubber and skin, were discovered in December 2018.
In January 2019, researchers used 3-D technology to unravel the secrets of a nearly 200 million-year-old ichthyosaur skull, which was discovered in 1955 in a British farmland.
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In December, a British man and his two dogs stumbled upon a beach in England over what are thought to be the fossil remains of a 65-million-year-old ichthyosaur.
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Fox News’ James Rogers contributed to this article.
