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Search resuls for: "Tanystropheus"


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CNN —Newly-discovered fossils have allowed scientists to reveal a 240-million-year-old “dragon” in its entirety for the first ever time, National Museums Scotland (NMS) said in a statement on Friday. An artist's rendition of the ancient marine creature. Marlene DonellyNow, newer fossils indicate that the creature had 32 vertebrae, creating an extremely long neck that likely helped it to catch fish, though scientists are still unsure of its precise function. “I’m still baffled by the function of the long neck,” Fraser said. They added that the Dinocephalosaurus’ long neck resembled another ancient, and equally baffling, marine reptile Tanystropheus hydroides.
Persons: Dr Nick Fraser, , Li Chun, Fraser, Chun, Marlene Donelly, “ I’m, ” Fraser, Organizations: CNN, National Museums Scotland, National Sciences, Environmental, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vertebrate Locations: China, NMS, Scotland, Germany, USA, Palaeoanthropology, Beijing, Guizhou Province
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. Useful in hunting, extreme neck elongation was common among marine reptiles spanning about 175 million years during the age of dinosaurs. 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, string-like neck ribs.
Persons: Tanystropheus, Stephan Spiekman, Spiekman, Eudald Mujal, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: State Museum of, Museum of, Thomson Locations: Switzerland, San Giorgio, Stuttgart, Germany
Fossils Show How Long-Necked Reptiles Lost Their Heads
  + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( Asher Elbein | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +1 min
In 1830, Henry De la Beche, an English paleontologist, composed a painting of “Duria Antiquior,” a vision of Mesozoic oceans. When picturing a long-necked marine reptile, he depicted its throat clamped between the jaws of a monstrous Ichthyosaurus. Almost two centuries have passed without direct evidence of the neck biting De la Beche imagined. The structure — which made up half the animal’s body — was constructed from 13 bizarrely elongated and interlocking vertebrae, creating a neck as stiff as a fishing rod. “Getting any insight into how these extreme structures functioned with potential weakness and strengths is very important,” Dr. Spiekman said.
Persons: Henry De la, picturing, Stephan Spiekman, Spiekman Organizations: State Museum of Locations: Stuttgart, Germany
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