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Newly Discovered: Animal Fossils

'Platypus-zilla' fossil unearthed in Australia
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC World Service
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24807557

The giant platypus would have measured more than 1m (3ft) in length

Part of a giant platypus fossil has been unearthed in Queensland, Australia.

Scientists have dubbed the beast "platypus-zilla" and believe it would have measured more than 1m long (3ft).

Writing in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the researchers say the creature lived between five and 15 million years ago.

The discovery suggests the evolutionary back-story of today's platypus is more complicated than was thought.

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“
Start Quote

It probably would have looked like a platypus on steroids”

Prof Mike Archer
University of New South Wales
Prof Mike Archer, from the University of New South Wales, said: "Suddenly up pops 'playtpus-zilla' - this gigantic monstrosity that you would have been afraid to swim with.

"It indicates there are branches in the platypus family tree that we hadn't suspected before."

Bizarre looks
Today, all that survives of this platypus is a single fossilised tooth, which was unearthed in the Riversleigh fossil beds in northwest Queensland.

Based on its size, the researchers have estimated that the new species (Obdurodon tharalkooschild) would have been at least twice as large as today's platypus.

Bumps on its teeth and other fossil finds nearby suggest that the creature feasted on crustaceans, turtles, frogs and fish.

Although the area where the molar was found is a desert, millions of years ago it would have been covered in forest. The researchers think the beast would have spent its time in and around freshwater ponds.

Giant platypus tooth
The platypus is described from a single molar that was found in Queensland
Prof Archer said that with just one tooth, it was difficult to work out exactly what this species would have looked like.

However other fossils suggest that it could have shared the same bizarre appearance as today's platypuses, with their duck-like bills, large webbed feet and poisonous spurs. But this would have been on a much larger scale.

"I guess it probably would have looked like a platypus on steroids," said Prof Archer.

Fossil platypus finds are in short supply, with just a few fragments found throughout the southern hemisphere.

As a result, there are many gaps in our understanding of the creature's past.

Prof Archer said: "We have been naively led to suspect that maybe it was just one lineage of strange animals bumbling its way through time and space at least for the last 60 million years.

"The discovery of this new one was a bit of a shock to us. It was a wake-up call that the platypus's story, the more we know about it, is increasingly more complicated than we thought."

The researchers are now hoping to find more platypus fossils in the same area to try to shed more light these enigmatic Australian animals.

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Oldest big cat fossil found in Tibet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24913291
By James Morgan
Science reporter, BBC News

Life reconstruction of Panthera blytheae based on skull CT data; illustrated by Mauricio Anton

Panthera blytheae was similar to modern snow leopards, palaeontologists say

The oldest big cat fossils ever found - from a previously unknown species "similar to a snow leopard" - have been unearthed in the Himalayas.

The skull fragments of the newly-named Panthera blytheae have been dated between 4.1 and 5.95 million years old.

Their discovery in Tibet supports the theory that big cats evolved in central Asia - not Africa - and spread outward.

The findings by US and Chinese palaeontologists are published in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

This ties up a lot of questions we had on how big cats evolved and spread throughout the world”

Dr Jack Tseng
University of Southern California
Find out more about big cats on BBC Nature
They used both anatomical and DNA data to determine that the skulls belonged to an extinct big cat, whose territory appears to overlap many of the species we know today.

"This cat is a sister of living snow leopards - it has a broad forehead and a short face. But it's a little smaller - the size of clouded leopards," said lead author Dr Jack Tseng of the University of Southern California.

"This ties up a lot of questions we had on how these animals evolved and spread throughout the world.

"Biologists had hypothesised that big cats originated in Asia. But there was a division between the DNA data and the fossil record."

Surprising find
The so-called "big cats" - the Pantherinae subfamily - includes lions, jaguars, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, and clouded leopards.

DNA evidence suggests they diverged from their cousins the Felinae - which includes cougars, lynxes, and domestic cats - about 6.37 million years ago.

But the earliest fossils previously found were just 3.6 million years old - tooth fragments uncovered at Laetoli in Tanzania, the famous hominin site excavated by Mary Leakey in the 1970s.

Fossil skull of Panthera blytheae
It is rare for such an ancient carnivore fossil to be so well preserved
The new fossils were dug up on an expedition in 2010 in the remote Zanda Basin in southwestern Tibet, by a team including Dr Tseng and his wife Juan Liu - a fellow palaeontologist.

They found over 100 bones deposited by a river eroding out of a cliff, including the crushed - but largely complete - remains of a big cat skull.

"We were very surprised to find a cat fossil in that basin," Dr Tseng told BBC News.

"Usually we find antelopes and rhinos, but this site was special. We found multiple carnivores - badgers, weasels and foxes."

Among the bones were seven skull fragments, belonging to at least three individual cats, including one nearly complete skull.

The fragments were dated using magnetostratigraphy - which relies on historical reversals in the Earth's magnetic field recorded in layers of rock.

They ranged between 4.10 and 5.95 million years old, the complete skull being around 4.4 million years of age.

"This is a very significant finding - it fills a very wide gap in the fossil record," said Dr Manabu Sakamoto of the University of Bristol, an expert on Pantherinae evolution.

"The discovery presents strong support for the Asian origin hypothesis for the big cats.

"It gives us a great insight into what early big cats may have looked like and where they may have lived."

However, Prof William Murphy of Texas A&M University, another expert on the evolutionary relationship of big cats, questioned whether the new species was really a sister of the snow leopard.

"The authors' claim that this skull is similar to the snow leopard is very weakly supported based on morphological characters alone, and this morphology-based tree is inconsistent with the DNA-based tree of living cats," he told BBC News.

"It remains equally probable that this fossil is ancestral to the living big cats. More complete skeletons would be beneficial to confirm their findings."

Dr Tseng and his team plan to return to the fossil site in Tibet next summer to search for more specimens.
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Skull fragments reveal new ancient crocodile species
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-26519396

Illustration of the Koumpiodontosuchus aprosdokiti

The newly discovered crocodile species was similar to those living today

Two fossilised skull fragments from a 2ft (60cm) crocodile found on the Isle of Wight point to the discovery of a new ancient species, a study has found.

The pieces - a snout and back part of the skull - were found by different private collectors three months apart.

Experts at the Dinosaur Isle museum near Sandown found the 126 million-year-old fragments "fitted together perfectly to make a complete skull".

The species has been named Koumpiodontosuchus aprosdokiti.

The name - meaning "unexpected button-toothed crocodile" - was given by University of Portsmouth palaeontologist Dr Steve Sweetman, who has published a paper on the discovery in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Continue reading the main story
Cretaceous period

The Cretaceous period began 142 million years ago
With sea levels at their highest, much of what we now know as dry land - including southern England and the US Midwest - was under water
Theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor and Spinosaurus were the top predators
Ended with the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, famed for the death of the dinosaurs
Meet the Cretaceous period killer no bigger than a turkey
The first piece, the skull, was found on a beach near Sandown in March 2011 by Diane Trevarthen who was on a fossil-hunting holiday with her family.

She took it to the museum where staff thought it might belong to a large Cretaceous crocodile baby.

Three months later, Austin and Finley Nathan found the snout while fossil-hunting on their holiday.

When museum staff saw their find, they recalled seeing the other piece and asked Ms Trevarthen to bring it back.

Both collectors donated their specimens to the museum.

A figure from the journal paper showing pictures and diagrams of the skull
The bone structure at the back of the palate of the skull is different to other ancient species
Dr Sweetman said: "Both parts of this wonderful little skull are in good condition, which is most unusual when you consider that crashing waves usually batter and blunt the edges of fossils like this within days or even hours of them being washed onto the beach.

"Both parts must therefore have been found very soon after they were released from the mud and debris originally laid down on a dinosaur-trampled river floodplain around 126 million years ago.

"The sheer serendipity of this discovery is quite bizarre.

"Finding the two parts is in itself remarkable. That they should be found three months apart by different collectors and taken to the museum where the same members of staff were on duty and therefore able to recall the first specimen defies belief."

Dr Steve Sweetman on the beach where the fossils were found
Dr Steve Sweetman examined the fragments found on the beach near Sandown in 2011
When he first saw it Dr Sweetman thought the skull belonged to a Bernissartia fagesii crocodile, known from skeletons of a similar age discovered in Belgium and Spain.

"I was convinced it was a Bernissartia skull because of its small size - the fully grown animal was only a little over two feet long from nose to tail - but particularly because of its button-shaped teeth, which are unique among crocodyliforms.

"They were used to crush mollusc shells and other invertebrates with tough outer coatings."

But after the skull had been cleaned, Dr Sweetman could see it had significant differences in the arrangement of bones.

"The location of the hole in the mouth, where the airway from the nose opens, was surrounded by bones at the very back of the palate.

"This tells us that the discovery is not only a new species but also a new genus of ancient croc closely related to, but subtly different to, those alive today."
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Paleontologists discover new fossil organism

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have discovered a fossil of a newly discovered organism from the "Ediacara Biota" -- a group of organisms that occurred in the Ediacaran period of geologic time.

Named Plexus ricei and resembling a curving tube, the organism resided on the Ediacaran seafloor. Plexus ricei individuals ranged in size from 5 to 80 centimeters long and 5 to 20 millimeters wide. Along with the rest of the Ediacara Biota, it evolved around 575 million years ago and disappeared from the fossil record around 540 million years ago, just around the time the Cambrian Explosion of evolutionary history was getting under way.

"Plexus was unlike any other fossil that we know from the Precambrian," said Mary L. Droser, a professor of paleontology, whose lab led the research. "It was bilaterally symmetrical at a time when bilaterians -- all animals other than corals and sponges -- were just appearing on this planet. It appears to have been very long and flat, much like a tapeworm or modern flatworm."

Study results appeared online last month in the Journal of Paleontology.
"Ediacaran fossils are extremely perplexing: they don't look like any animal that is alive today, and their interrelationships are very poorly understood," said Lucas V. Joel, a former graduate student at UC Riverside and the first author of the research paper. Joel worked in Droser's lab until June 2013.
He explained that during the Ediacaran there was no life on land. All life that we know about for the period was still in the oceans.

"Further, there was a complete lack of any bioturbation in the oceans at that time, meaning there were few marine organisms churning up marine sediments while looking for food," he said. "Then, starting in the Cambrian period, organisms began churning up and mixing the sediment."

According to the researchers, the lack of bioturbators during the Ediacaran allowed thick films of (probably) photosynthetic algal mats to accumulate on ocean floors -- a very rare environment in the oceans today. Such an environment paved the way for many mat-related lifestyles to evolve, which become virtually absent in the post-Ediacaran world.

"The lack of bioturbation also created a very unique fossil preservational regime," Joel said. "When an organism died and was buried, it formed a mold of its body in the overlying sediment. As the organism decayed, sediment from beneath moved in to form a cast of the mold the organism had made in the sediment above. What this means is that the fossils we see in the field are not the exact fossils of the original organism, but instead molds and casts of its body."

Paleontologists have reported that much of the Ediacara Biota was composed of tubular organisms. The question that Droser and Joel addressed was: Is Plexus ricei a tubular organism or is it an organism that wormed its way through the sand, leaving a trail behind it?

"In the Ediacaran we really need to know the difference between the fossils of actual tubular organisms and trace fossils because if the fossil we are looking at is a trace fossil, then that has huge implications for the earliest origins of bilaterian animals -- organisms with bilateral symmetry up and down their midlines and that can move independently of environment forces," Joel said. "Being able to tell the difference between a tubular organism and a trace fossil has implications for the earliest origins of bilaterian organism, which are the only kinds of creatures that could have constructed a tubular trace fossil. Plexus is not a trace fossil. What our research shows is that the structure we see looks very much like a trace fossil, but is in fact a new Ediacaran tubular organism, Plexus ricei."

Plexus ricei was so named for plexus, meaning braided in Latin, a reference to the organism's morphology, and ricei for Rice, the last name of the South Australian Museum's Dennis Rice, one of the field assistants who helped excavate numerous specimens of the fossil.

"At this time, we don't know for sure that Plexus ricei was a bilateral but it is likely that it was related to our ancestors," Droser said.

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of California - Riverside. The original article was written by Iqbal Pittalwala. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:
Lucas V. Joel, Mary L. Droser, James G. Gehling. A New Enigmatic, Tubular Organism from the Ediacara Member, Rawnsley Quartzite, South Australia. Journal of Paleontology, 2014; 88 (2): 253 DOI: 10.1666/13-058

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 172917.htm
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Fossilised crocodile tooth 'largest of its kind in UK'

The fossilised tooth of the Dakosaurus maximus was discovered off Chesil Beach in Dorset and is now housed at the Natural History Museum in London

The fossilised tooth of a prehistoric crocodile has been recorded as the largest of its kind found in the UK.

The 2in (5.5cm) tooth was dredged from the seabed near Chesil Beach, Dorset.

It belonged to an ancient relative of modern crocodiles, known as Dakosaurus maximus.

Researchers from the the University of Edinburgh and curators from the Natural History Museum identified it after it was bought at an online auction by a fossil collector about a year ago.

Artist's impression of a Dakosaurus maximus
The shape of its skull and teeth suggests it ate similar prey to killer whales
The tooth, which has a broken tip, is now in the fossil collection of the London-based museum.

'Exceptionally dangerous'
Dakosaurus maximus grew to about 4.5m (15ft) in length and swam in the shallow seas of Europe 152 million years ago, according to the team's research published in the scientific journal Historical Biology.

The shape of its skull and teeth suggest it ate similar prey to killer whales, using its broad, short jaws to swallow fish whole and to bite chunks from larger prey.

Dr Mark Young, from the university's school of biological sciences, said: "Given its size, Dakosaurus had very large teeth.

"However, it wasn't the top marine predator of its time, and would have swum alongside other larger marine reptiles, making the shallow seas of the Late Jurassic period exceptionally dangerous."
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-27606864
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Who’s the daddy?

This carbonised film was once a fish—one of the most ancient known to science. It is called Metaspriggina walcotti and dates from 505m years ago, the middle of the Cambrian period. It, and about 100 others like it, were collected recently from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia by Simon Conway Morris of Cambridge University and Jean-Bernard Caron of the University of Toronto. The researchers describe these unusual fish in a paper in Nature. Metaspriggina had large eyes (towards the left in the photograph) and, though boneless and therefore spineless, had a characteristic structure called a notochord running along its back to stiffen it. Backboned animals, too, have a notochord when they are embryos, though it disappears during development. Metaspriggina or one of its contemporaries was thus ancestral to mankind.
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The origins of scorpions are murky. The oldest of these arachnids (a group that also includes modern-day spiders, ticks, and mites) are known from fossils from Scottish rocks laid down between 433 million and 438 million years ago that show only their outlines. Now, well-preserved but slightly younger fossils from southwestern Ontario suggest that the animals originated in the seas—and may have been able to clamber onto shore well before the time scientists previously recognized. Those fossils—11 specimens in all—were entombed in sediments laid down on the shores of ancient lagoons between 430 million and 433 million years ago. And because all of them are of molted exoskeletons and not carcasses, the remains were too fragile to be washed to their final resting place from somewhere else, researchers suggest.

Thus, the remains were probably shed at the water’s edge and preserved there, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Anatomical traits of the new species back up that notion: The creature apparently didn’t have feeding structures enabling life on land. Yet the last segment of its legs was relatively short, allowing it to plant its “foot” flat, like modern-day scorpions, instead of walking on tiptoe like other water-dwelling scorpions of the era were presumed to do. The scorpion’s ability to fully support its own weight when out of water (and therefore escape solely aquatic predators) would have been a tremendous evolutionary benefit, the researchers note: As is the case with their modern-day kin, when the scorpions molted they would have been extremely vulnerable.

http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2015/01/first-scorpions-may-have-crawled-seas
 
Earth's first big predatory monster was a weird water bug as big as Tom Cruise, newly found fossils show.

Almost half a billion years ago, way before the dinosaurs roamed, Earth's dominant large predator was a sea scorpion that grew to 170 centimetres (5 feet 7 inches), with a dozen claw arms sprouting from its head and a spike tail, according to a new study.

Scientists found signs of these new monsters of the prehistoric deep in Iowa, of all places.

Geologists at the Iowa Geological Survey found 150 pieces of fossils about 18 metres (60 feet) under the Upper Iowa River, part of which had to be temporarily dammed to allow them to collect the specimens. Then scientists at Yale University determined they were a new species from about 460 million years ago, when Iowa was under an ocean

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/g...en-earth-s-1st-big-predator-1.3211106?cmp=rss
 
ramonmercado said:
Earth's first big predatory monster was a weird water bug as big as Tom Cruise, newly found fossils show.

Almost half a billion years ago, way before the dinosaurs roamed, Earth's dominant large predator was a sea scorpion that grew to 170 centimetres (5 feet 7 inches), with a dozen claw arms sprouting from its head and a spike tail, according to a new study.

Scientists found signs of these new monsters of the prehistoric deep in Iowa, of all places.

Geologists at the Iowa Geological Survey found 150 pieces of fossils about 18 metres (60 feet) under the Upper Iowa River, part of which had to be temporarily dammed to allow them to collect the specimens. Then scientists at Yale University determined they were a new species from about 460 million years ago, when Iowa was under an ocean

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/g...en-earth-s-1st-big-predator-1.3211106?cmp=rss
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I beleive your referring to Pterygotus the largest sea scorpion (arthropod) of all time. This creature is supposed to have ambushed prey (trilobites, fish) and subdued them with its claws. Unlike other sea scorpions it was to large to leave the water. It's est. to have grown up to > 9' in length.
 
ramonmercado said:
Earth's first big predatory monster was a weird water bug as big as Tom Cruise
Click to expand...
So, not very big then!

The article has the headline:
"Human-sized Pentecopterus decorahensis attacked prey with claws attached to its head"

Make your minds up! Is it human sized or Tom Cruise sized? Okay, I'll leave it there. I've had nearly four months, and that's all I've come up with.

Jim said:
Pentecopterus decorahensis fossils come from Iowa. How do you figure this was Pentecopterus decorahensis when the tracks were found in Scotland?
Click to expand...
We're mixing up two different stories on this thread. Let's take a moment to review the previous posts.
 
The 1st portion of the URL I posted reads as follows below:

A cast is being made of tracks left by a two-metre long ancient animal in north east Fife.
The tracks were made by a giant six-legged "sea scorpion" called Hibbertopterus as it crawled over damp sand about 330 million years ago.
It is the largest known walking trackway of a eurypterid or any invertebrate animal.
...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibbertopterus

I don't know how to further clarify?
 
Your post #15 quotes post#14 which is about Pentecopterus decorahensis.

Is that clear?
 
Monstrosa said:
Your post #15 quotes post#14 which is about Pentecopterus decorahensis.

Is that clear?
Click to expand...
My previous post 17 and 21 clearly state that the tracks were left by the eurypterid Hibbertopterus in Scotland. It seemed the purpose of the tread (if staying on topic) was the sensational find of the ancient invertebrate tracts.

This has nothing to do with Pentecopterus decorahensis which is completely separate species of eurypterid found in North America.

I will repost the URL's concerning Hibbertoperus and the tracks it left in Scotland one more time for clarity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8632427.stm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibbertopterus
 
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Jim said:
My previous post 17 and 21 clearly state that the tracks were left by the eurypterid Hibbertopterus in Scotland.
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Sorry Jim but you original post was this one, which was a response to Ramon's posting of this article, which was specifically and solely about Pentecopterus decorahensis. I don't think you read the article before responding.
 
For what it's worth, a local news article about that Iowan species - an arthropod so large it even dwarfs Tom Cruise - now immortalised in a municipal artwork:

Waiting 467 million years for a starring role

'The object of all that media attention along the Upper Iowa River in Freeport on Thursday afternoon? That would be the statue of "Pentecopterus Decorahensis," the six-foot-long sea scorpion that roamed the area 467 million years ago'.
Full article here at decorahnews.com
 
Pterygotus:

5 foot head to tail
Carnivorous
'Good depth perception'

Gulp.
 
Andy_X said:
Pterygotus:

5 foot head to tail
Carnivorous
'Good depth perception'

Gulp.
Click to expand...
Pterygotus, according to "The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life" by Tim Haines and Paul Chambers 9'2"
 
I'm guessing they died out because their main food source also died out...they look ideally suited to survive anything really.
 
It may be the reference point at where they measure the beast. However there seems to be some contention as to which of these sea scorpions was the largest? This video present Jaekelopterus at 2.5 m from head to tail. I suppose be it 2.5 m or 3 m, they would all be frightening.

 
Texas fish of dinosaur era found to be new species
February 22, 2016 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

A 90-million-year-old fossil fish, currently on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, turns out to be a new species. Research conducted by Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D., professor at DePaul University and research associate of the Sternberg Museum, reveals the 5.5-foot-long fossil fish to possess a tuna-like body with a unique 'hook-shaped sail' on its back. The fish's new species name, Pentanogmius fritschi, is in honor of local amateur collector Joseph Fritsch. Credit: Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D.
A 90-million-year-old fossil fish, which has been on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, turns out to be a new species. Research conducted by Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D., professor at DePaul University in Chicago and research associate of the Sternberg Museum in Kansas, reveals the 5.5-foot-long fossil fish to possess a tuna-like body with a unique 'hook-shaped sail' on its back. The fish has been given a new species name, Pentanogmius fritschi, in honor of Joseph Fritsch, a local amateur collector who discovered the fossil, dug it up with the help of another avid fossil collector, Kris Howe, and donated it to the Perot Museum.

"At first glance, the specimen looked like a known Pentanogmius species, but when I began to trace the curved dorsal fin, its front half kept extending backwards far beyond where I thought it would end relative to its rear half. That's when I realized I have something new to science," said Dr. Shimada.

The fossil fish is a nearly complete skeleton from the Britton Formation of the Eagle Ford Shale in Dallas County. Dr. Shimada's study suggests that Pentanogmius fritschi was an active fish in open ocean environments that possibly fed on a variety of small animals like squid and other fish. ...

http://phys.org/news/2016-02-texas-fish-dinosaur-era-species.html
 
ramonmercado said:
Texas fish of dinosaur era found to be new species
February 22, 2016 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

A 90-million-year-old fossil fish, currently on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, turns out to be a new species. Research conducted by Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D., professor at DePaul University and research associate of the Sternberg Museum, reveals the 5.5-foot-long fossil fish to possess a tuna-like body with a unique 'hook-shaped sail' on its back. The fish's new species name, Pentanogmius fritschi, is in honor of local amateur collector Joseph Fritsch. Credit: Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D.
A 90-million-year-old fossil fish, which has been on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, turns out to be a new species. Research conducted by Kenshu Shimada, Ph.D., professor at DePaul University in Chicago and research associate of the Sternberg Museum in Kansas, reveals the 5.5-foot-long fossil fish to possess a tuna-like body with a unique 'hook-shaped sail' on its back. The fish has been given a new species name, Pentanogmius fritschi, in honor of Joseph Fritsch, a local amateur collector who discovered the fossil, dug it up with the help of another avid fossil collector, Kris Howe, and donated it to the Perot Museum.

"At first glance, the specimen looked like a known Pentanogmius species, but when I began to trace the curved dorsal fin, its front half kept extending backwards far beyond where I thought it would end relative to its rear half. That's when I realized I have something new to science," said Dr. Shimada.

The fossil fish is a nearly complete skeleton from the Britton Formation of the Eagle Ford Shale in Dallas County. Dr. Shimada's study suggests that Pentanogmius fritschi was an active fish in open ocean environments that possibly fed on a variety of small animals like squid and other fish. ...

http://phys.org/news/2016-02-texas-fish-dinosaur-era-species.html
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Nice bite to eat for a Mosasaur.
 
Thank you for sharing this!

It took me a moment to remember that North America in that period was divided in two at that point, the Appalacians and the Rockies separated by an expanse of sea. Shallow seas, if I recall correctly. I wonder if that tells us a fair bit about this fish's lifestyle, and possibly feeding habits?
 
Paleontologists discover 250-million-year-old new species of reptile in Brazil
March 11, 2016 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

An international team of scientists, from three Brazilian universities and one UK university, have discovered a new fossil reptile that lived 250 million years ago in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, southernmost Brazil. The species has been identified from a mostly complete and well preserved fossil skull that the team has named Teyujagua paradoxa.

The fossil was discovered in the beginning of 2015 by a team from the Paleobiology Laboratory of the Universidade Federal do Pampa (Unipampa), in a Triassic rock exposure near the city of São Francisco de Assis. This discovery, published today in the journal Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group), helps to clarify the initial evolution of the group that gave rise to dinosaurs, pterosaurs (flying reptiles), crocodiles and birds.

The name Teyujagua comes from the language of the Guarani ethnic group and means 'fierce lizard'. It references a mythological beast called Teyú Yaguá, usually depicted as a lizard with a dog´s head.Teyujagua is very different from other fossils from the same age. Its anatomy is intermediate between the more primitive reptiles and a diverse and important group called 'archosauriforms'. Archosauriformes include all the extinct dinosaurs and pterosaurs, along with modern day birds and crocodiles.

The discovery of Teyujagua is important because it lived just after the great Permo-Triassic mass extinction event that occurred 252 million years ago. This extinction wiped out about 90 per cent of all species then living and was probably triggered by giant and intense volcanic eruptions in the eastern part of what is now Russia. ...

http://phys.org/news/2016-03-paleontologists-million-year-old-species-reptile-brazil.html
 
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