{"id":3517,"date":"2022-01-18T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=3517"},"modified":"2022-01-07T04:14:01","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T04:14:01","slug":"ancient-montana-was-plagued-by-a-massive-marine-reptile-and-it-probably-looked-like-a-dolphin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/ancient-montana-was-plagued-by-a-massive-marine-reptile-and-it-probably-looked-like-a-dolphin\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Montana Was Plagued By a Massive Marine Reptile\u2014And It Probably Looked Like a Dolphin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ask anyone to picture what an \u201cunderwater reptile\u201d looks like and they\u2019d be likely to bring up images of crocodiles and alligators waiting for their next prey with their eyes slightly above the waterline. After all, these animals are among those that we have left of the massive reptiles that once roamed our planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Crocodiles, alligators, and their relatives lie in wait near the water\u2019s edge, waiting on the opportunity to launch a surprise attack on anything that comes wading in a little bit too close. (Collins, 2020) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Some images that may not come up in people\u2019s minds, though, are those of dolphins. These creatures seem to be the poster child for \u201cfriendly sea dwellers,\u201d mostly due to the anecdotal stories of these animals guiding, or sometimes even outright returning lost humans out at sea to the nearest shore. These animals have been around for millions of years<\/a>, and they likely evolved from land-dwelling mammals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dolphins are among the most recognizable of marine mammals, and for good reason. These animals have been around for millions of years, ever since their ancestors first tried their fates to search the nearby shallow waters for food. (Fitzsimmons, 2020) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Get a photo of a skeleton of a dolphin and place it near the fossil of an ancient marine reptile called an ichthyosaur<\/em>, however, and the lines start to get blurry. This particularly ancient marine reptile was given a name which literally translates to \u201cfish lizard,\u201d and for a pretty good reason: they scoured the vast seas through much of the Mesozoic Era, also known as the Age of Dinosaurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A diagram of the skeletal structure of both a dolphin and an ichthyosaur, when placed together, put in full display all the mysterious similarities between the two animals separated by millions of years of geologic time. (Wikimedia Commons, 2015) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One ichthyosaur, in particular, is making waves in the paleontological world. Published in the journal Science<\/em><\/a>, this particular study found ichthyosaur fossils atop the Augusta Mountains of Nevada. The new find, named Cymbospondylus youngorum<\/em>, may have been a \u201cfish reptile\u201d that grew to immense sizes pretty quickly, which may have made it one of the largest animals around during its heyday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paleoartist Stephanie Abramowicz reimagined what Cymbospondylus youngorum<\/em> may have looked like back when it was still alive. (Abramowicz\/Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 2022) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The ichthyosaur C. youngorum<\/em> was dated to be around 246 million years old, which places it at the early Triassic period\u2014just some three million years after the very first ichthyosaur relatives were thought to have first entered the ancient Triassic oceans. Among the parts of the skeleton found were its 2-m (6.6-ft) long skull, parts of its backbone, shoulder, and parts of one of its flipper arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A cast of the skull of Cy youngorum<\/em> is pictured above. (Kent\/Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 2022) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Given the size of its skull, this particular specimen of C. youngorum<\/em> would have grown to about 17 m (55 ft) in length\u2014a massive size for a marine animal, considering it lived just some 5 million years after the Great Dying<\/em>, or the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which wiped out around 81% of all marine life and some 70% of all terrestrial life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, given the short three (3) million years of geologic time since the first ichthyosaurs splashed onto the scene, the time it took this particular family of marine reptiles to achieve giant sizes\u2014a process called gigantism<\/em>\u2014was particularly rapid. The scientists who worked on the study say that this may have been due to the explosion of prey animals right after the Great Dying, which gave ichthyosaurs like C. youngorum<\/em> plenty of food that can be used to grow to such large sizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County\u2019s (NHM) Associate Curator of Mammalogy (Marine Mammals) Dr. Jorge Velez-Juarbe in a statement from the NHM website: \u201cThis discovery and the results of our study highlight how different groups of marine tetrapods evolved body sizes of epic proportions under somewhat similar circumstances, but at surprisingly different rates. Moving forward, with the dataset we\u2019ve compiled and analytical methods we’ve tested, we can start thinking about including other groups of secondarily aquatic vertebrates to understand this aspect of their evolutionary history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(For more related news, read further on how Kansas was once home to a vicious sea creature that was recently reclassified<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n