Scientists from the universities of Zurich (Switzerland) and Bonn (Germany) announced the discovery of the fossil remains of one of the largest marine reptiles that ever inhabited the earth , according to the details of the study published by the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The researchers, who found fossils on top of the Chrachenhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps, about 2,740 meters above sea level, identified the ribs and vertebrae of two ichthyosaur specimens, which would have measured between about 15 and 21 meters long.
In addition to these two animals, paleontologists discovered the tooth of a third specimen. About 6 centimeters thick and 15 centimeters long, it is the piece largest tooth ever discovered : “The tooth is especially interesting because it could represent – although it is unlikely – the largest animal that has ever inhabited the Earth,” said paleontologist Martin Sander, of the University of Bonn.
THEY FIND FOSSILS OF A MARINE REPTILE IT COULD BE THE “BIGGEST ANIMAL” THAT HAS INHABITED THE EARTH https://t.co/twckBaqRvC
— La Gazzetta DF (@LaGazzettaDF) May 2, 2022
The tooth raises new questions about its diet
Based on the fact that an ichthyosaur of 18 meters long had teeth 2 cm wide, Sander added that “then a tooth 6 centimeters wide could come from an animal of 54 meters long”.
The finding of this dental piece raises new doubts about the feeding of these animals, since until now it was considered that the largest subspecies of ichthyosaur lacked teeth and They sucked their prey. The smaller ones would have hunted squid, large fish, and other smaller ichthyosaurs.
How did it get to the top of a mountain?
The fossils were discovered in an area of sediments from the Triassic period (about 200 million years ago), when the area was covered by the Tethys Sea, at a time when that the emerging land was concentrated in two large continental masses baptized by geologists as Gondwana and Laurasia.
The movement of the immense plates that make up the crust explains how fossils that formed on an ancient seabed ended up high in the mountains: “The Alps have a very complicated structure, with gigantic plates of rock formed by ancient seabeds , called napas, stacked one on top of the other by the thrust of the African plate on the European one. The layer from which the ichthyosaurs come is the highest. This piling up occurred in the last 35 million years approximately”, explained Sander.
The largest animal that ever inhabited the Earth?
The remains are too incomplete to definitively determine their species, but they probably belong to the family of ichthyosaurs called Shastasauridae, that could measure up to 21 meters. However, with this new discovery, some experts are beginning to think that it could be even larger.
The blue whale, about 30 meters long, has been considered the largest creature on Earth. Sander said future research on giant Triassic ichthyosaurs could cast doubt on this conclusion.
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