wandering around is ancient reptile

Wandering around is ancient reptile (8)

I believe the answer is:

' ancient reptile ' is the definition. ' dinosaur ' can be an answer for ' reptile ' (dinosaur is a kind of reptile) . I am not certain of the ' ancient ' bit. ' wandering around is ' is the wordplay. ' wandering ' indicates an anagram. ' around '+' is '=' aroundis ' ' aroundis ' with letters rearranged gives ' DINOSAUR '.

Can you help me to learn more ?

(Other definitions for dinosaur that I've seen before include "Huge prehistoric monster" , "Fogey" , "Extinct monster like Barney, children's TV pal" , "Out of date person or thing" , "Prehistoric monster from Jurassic era" .)

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Wandering around is ancient reptile

Wandering around is ancient reptile is a crossword clue for which we have 1 possible answer and we have spotted 1 times in our database. This crossword clue was last seen on 26 October 2022 in The Sun Cryptic Crossword puzzle !

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Wandering around is ancient reptile Crossword Clue

Definition of "dinosaur".

a fossil reptile of the Mesozoic era, in many species reaching an enormous size.

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Prehistoric Reptile Pictures and Profiles

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Meet the Ancestral Reptiles of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras

Some time during the late Carboniferous period, about 300 million years ago, the most advanced amphibians on earth evolved into the first true reptiles . On the following slides, you'll find pictures and detailed profiles of over 30 ancestral reptiles of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras, ranging from Araeoscelis to Tseajara.

Araeoscelis

Araeoscelis (Greek for "thin legs"); pronounced AH-ray-OSS-kell-iss

Swamps of North America

Historical Period:

Early Permian (285-275 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About two feet long and a few pounds

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Long, thin legs; long tail; lizard-like appearance

Essentially, the skittering, insect-eating Araeoscelis looked like any other small, lizard-like proto-reptile of the early Permian period. What makes this otherwise obscure critter important is that it was one of the first diapsids--that is, reptiles with two characteristic openings in their skulls. As such, Araeoscelis and other early diapsids occupies the root of a vast evolutionary tree that includes dinosaurs, crocodiles , and even (if you want to get technical about it) birds. By comparison, most small, lizard-like anapsid reptiles (those lacking any tell-tale skull holes), such as Milleretta and Captorhinus, went extinct by the end of the Permian period, and are represented today only by turtles and tortoises.

Archaeothyris

Archaeothyris; pronounced ARE-kay-oh-THIGH-riss

Late Carboniferous (305 million years ago)

About 1-2 feet long and a few pounds

Probably carnivorous

Small size; powerful jaws with sharp teeth

To the modern eye, Archaeothyris looks like pretty much any other small, scurrying lizard of the pre-Mesozoic Era, but this ancestral reptile has an important place in the evolutionary family tree: it's the first known synapsid , a family of reptiles characterized by the unique number of openings in their skulls. As such, this late Carboniferous creature is believed to have been ancestral to all subsequent pelycosaurs and therapsids , not to mention the early mammals that evolved from therapsids during the Triassic period (and went on to spawn modern human beings).

Barbaturex (Greek for "bearded king"); pronounced BAR-bah-TORE-rex

Woodlands of southeast Asia

Historical Epoch:

Late Eocene (40 million years ago)

About three feet long and 20 pounds

Relatively large size; ridges on lower jaw; squat, splayed posture

If you're a paleontologist who wants to generate headlines, it helps to throw in a pop-culture reference: who can resist a prehistoric lizard named Barbaturex morrisoni , after the Lizard King himself, the long-deceased Doors frontman Jim Morrison? A remote ancestor of modern iguanas, Barbaturex was one of the largest lizards of the Eocene epoch, weighing about as much as a medium-sized dog. (Prehistoric lizards never quite achieved the huge dimensions of their reptile cousins; compared to Eocene snakes and crocodiles, Barbaturex was an insignificant runt.) Significantly, this "bearded king" competed directly with comparably sized mammals for vegetation, another indication that Eocene ecosystems were more complicated than once believed.

Brachyrhinodon

Brachyrhinodon (Greek for "short-nosed tooth"); pronounced BRACK-ee-RYE-no-don

Woodlands of western Europe

Late Triassic (230 million years ago)

About six inches long and a few ounces

Short size; quadrupedal posture; blunt snout

The Tuatara of New Zealand is often described as a "living fossil," and you can see why by looking at the late Triassic Tuatara ancestor Brachyrhinodon, which lived over 200 million years ago. Basically, Brachyrhinodon looked almost identical to its modern relative, except for its smaller size and blunter snout, which was presumably an adaptation to the type of food available in its ecosystem. This six-inch-long ancestral reptile seems to have specialized in hard-shelled insects and invertebrates, which it crushed between its numerous, small teeth.

Bradysaurus

Bradysaurus (Greek for "Brady's lizard"); pronounced BRAY-dee-SORE-us

Swamps of southern Africa

Historical Period

Late Permian (260 million years ago)

Size and Weight

About six feet long and 1,000-2,000 pounds

Distinguishing Characteristics

Bulky torso; short tail

First things first: while it's amusing to imagine otherwise, Bradysaurus has nothing to do with the classic TV series The Brady Bunch (or the two subsequent movies), but was simply named after the man who discovered it. Essentially, this was a classic pareiasaur, a thick, squat, small-brained reptile of the Permian period that weighed as much as a small car and was presumably much slower. What makes Bradysaurus important is that it's the most basal pareiasaur yet discovered, kind of a template for the next few million years of pareiasaur evolution (and, considering how little these reptiles managed to evolve before they went extinct, that's not saying much!)

Bunostegos was the late Permian equivalent of a cow, the difference being that this creature wasn't a mammal (a family that didn't evolve for another 50 or so million years) but a type of prehistoric reptile called a pareiasaur. See an in-depth profile of Bunostegos

Captorhinus

Captorhinus (Greek for "stem nose"); pronounced CAP-toe-RYE-nuss

Early Permian (295-285 million years ago)

About seven inches long and less than a pound

Small size; lizard-like appearance; two rows of teeth in jaws

Just how primitive, or "basal," was the 300-million-year-old Captorhinus? As the famous paleontologist Robert Bakker once phrased it, "If you started as a Captorhinus, you could end up evolving into just about anything." Some qualifications apply, though: this half-foot-long critter was technically an anapsid, an obscure family of ancestral reptiles characterized by the lack of openings in their skulls (and represented today only by turtles and tortoises). As such, this nimble insect-eater didn't really evolve into anything, but went extinct along with most of its anapsid relatives (such as Milleretta) by the end of the Permian period.

Coelurosauravus

Coelurosauravus (Greek for "grandfather of the hollow lizard"); pronounced SEE-lore-oh-SORE-ay-vuss

Woodlands of western Europe and Madagascar

Late Permian (250 million years ago)

About one foot long and one pound

Small size; moth-like wings made of skin

Coelurosauravus is one of those prehistoric reptiles (like Micropachycephalosaurus ) the name of which is disproportionately larger than its actual size. This strange, tiny creature represented a strand of evolution that died out by the end of the Triassic period: the gliding reptiles, which were only distantly related to the pterosaurs of the Mesozoic Era. Like a flying squirrel, the tiny Coelurosauravus glided from tree to tree on its taut, skin-like wings (which looked uncannily like the wings of a large moth), and it also possessed sharp claws to grab securely onto bark. The remains of two different species of Coelurosauravus have been found in two widely separated locations, western Europe and the island of Madagascar.

Cryptolacerta

Cryptolacerta (Greek for "hidden lizard"); pronounced CRIP-toe-la-SIR-ta

Swamps of western Europe

Early Eocene (47 million years ago)

About three inches long and less than an ounce

Probably insects

Small size; tiny limbs

Some of the most puzzling reptiles alive today are the amphisbaenians, or "worm lizards"--tiny, legless, earthworm-sized lizards that bear an uncanny resemblance to blind, cave-dwelling snakes. Until recently, paleontologists were unsure where to fit amphisbaenians on the reptile family tree; that has all changed with the discovery of Cryptolacerta, a 47-million-year-old amphisbaenian possessing small, almost vestigial legs. Cryptolacerta clearly evolved from a family of reptiles known as lacertids, proving that amphisbaenians and prehistoric snakes arrived at their legless anatomies via a process of convergent evolution and are not in fact closely related.

Drepanosaurus

The Triassic reptile Drepanosaurus possessed single, oversized claws on its front hands, as well as a long, monkey-like, prehensile tail with a "hook" on the end, which was clearly meant to anchor it to the high branches of trees. See an in-depth profile of Drepanosaurus

Elginia ("from Elgin"); pronounced el-GIN-ee-ah

About two feet long and 20-30 pounds

Small size; knobby armor on head

During the late Permian period, some of the biggest creatures on earth were the pareiasaurs, a plus-sized breed of anapsid reptiles (i.e., those lacking characteristics holes in their skulls) best typified by Scutosaurus and Eunotosaurus . While most pareiasaurs measured 8 to 10 feet long, Elginia was a "dwarf" member of the breed, only about two feet from head to tail (at least to judge by this reptile's limited fossil remains). It's possible that Elginia's diminutive size was a response to the hostile conditions toward the end of the Permian period (when most anapsid reptiles went extinct); the ankylosaur -like armor on its head would also have protected it from hungry therapsids and archosaurs .

Homeosaurus

Homeosaurus (Greek for "the same lizard"); pronounced HOME-ee-oh-SORE-us

Woodlands of Europe

Late Jurassic (150 million years ago)

About eight inches long and half a pound

Small size; quadrupedal posture; armored skin

The tuatara of New Zealand is often referred to as a "living fossil," so different from other terrestrial reptiles as to represent a throwback to prehistoric times. As far as paleontologists can tell, Homeosaurus and a handful of even more obscure genera belonged to the same family of diapsid reptiles (the sphenodonts) as the tuatara. The amazing thing about this tiny, insect-eating lizard is that it coexisted with--and was a bite-sized snack for--the huge dinosaurs of the late Jurassic period, 150 million years ago.

Hylonomus (Greek for "forest mouse"); pronounced high-LON-oh-muss

Forests of North America

Carboniferous (315 million years ago)

Tiny size; sharp teeth

It's always possible that a more ancient candidate will be discovered, but as of now, Hylonomus is the earliest true reptile known to paleontologists: this tiny critter scuttled around the forests of the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago. Based on reconstructions, Hylonomus certainly looked distinctly reptilian, with its quadrupedal, splay-footed posture, long tail, and sharp teeth.

Hylonomus is also a good object lesson in how evolution works. You might be surprised to learn that the oldest ancestor of the mighty dinosaurs (not to mention modern crocodiles and birds) was about the size of a small gecko, but new life forms have a way of "radiating" from very small, simple progenitors. For example, all mammals alive today--including humans and sperm whales--are ultimately descended from a mouse-sized ancestor that scurried beneath the feet of huge dinosaurs more than 200 million years ago.

Hypsognathus

Hypsognathus (Greek for "high jaw"); pronounced hip-SOG-nah-thuss

Swamps of eastern North America

Late Triassic (215-200 million years ago)

About one foot long and a few pounds

Small size; squat trunk; spikes on head

Most of the small, lizard-like anapsid reptiles --which were characterized by a lack of diagnostic holes in their skulls--went extinct at the end of the Permian period, while their diapsid relatives prospered. An important exception was the late Triassic Hypsognathus, which may have survived thanks to its unique evolutionary niche (unlike most anapsids, it was a herbivore) and the alarming-looking spikes on its head, which deterred larger predators, possibly including the first theropod dinosaurs . We can thank Hypsognathus and its fellow anapsid survivors like Procolophon for turtles and tortoises, which are the only modern representatives of this ancient reptile family.

Hypuronector

Hypuronector (Greek for "deep-tailed swimmer"); pronounced hi-POOR-oh-neck-tore

Woodlands of eastern North America

Small size; long, flat tail

Just because a prehistoric reptile is represented by dozens of fossil specimens doesn't mean it can't be misunderstood by paleontologists. For decades, the tiny Hypuronector was assumed to be a marine reptile, since experts could think of no other function for its long, flat tail than underwater propulsion (it didn't hurt that all those Hypuronector fossils were discovered in a lake bottom in New Jersey). Now, though, the weight of the evidence is that the "deep-tailed swimmer" Hypuronector was actually a tree-dwelling reptile, closely related to Longisquama and Kuehneosaurus, that glided from branch to branch in search of insects.

Icarosaurus

Icarosaurus (Greek for "Icarus lizard"); pronounced ICK-ah-roe-SORE-us

Late Triassic (230-200 million years ago)

About four inches long and 2-3 ounces

Small size; butterfly-like appearance; extremely light weight

Named after Icarus--the figure from Greek myth who flew too close to the sun on his artificial wings--Icarosaurus was a hummingbird-sized gliding reptile of late Triassic North America, closely related to the contemporary European Kuehneosaurus and the earlier Coelurosauravus. Unfortunately, the tiny Icarosaurus (which was only distantly related to pterosaurs ) was out of the mainstream of reptile evolution during the Mesozoic Era, and it and its inoffensive companions had all gone extinct by the start of the Jurassic period.

Kuehneosaurus

Kuehneosaurus (Greek for "Kuehne's lizard"); pronounced KEEN-ee-oh-SORE-us

About two feet long and 1-2 pounds

Small size; butterfly-like wings; long tail

Along with Icarosaurus and Coelurosauravus, Kuehneosaurus was a gliding reptile of the late Triassic period, a small, inoffensive creature that floated from tree to tree on its butterfly-like wings (pretty much like a flying squirrel, except for some important details). Kuehneosaurus and pals were pretty much out of the mainstream of reptile evolution during the Mesozoic Era, which was dominated by archosaurs and therapsids and then dinosaurs; in any event, these gliding reptiles (which were only remotely related to pterosaurs ) went extinct by the start of the Jurassic period 200 million years ago.

Labidosaurus

Labidosaurus (Greek for "lipped lizard"); pronounced la-BYE-doe-SORE-us

Early Permian (275-270 million years ago)

About 30 inches long and 5-10 pounds

Probably plants, insects and mollusks

Large head with numerous teeth

An otherwise unremarkable ancestral reptile of the early Permian period, the cat-sized Labidosaurus is famous for betraying the earliest known evidence of a prehistoric toothache. A specimen of Labidosaurus described in 2011 showed evidence of osteomyelitis in its jawbone, the most likely cause being an uncontrolled tooth infection (root canals, unfortunately, weren't an option 270 million years ago). Making matters worse, the teeth of Labidosaurus were unusually deeply set in its jaw, so this individual may have suffered for an excruciatingly long time before it died and happened to be fossilized.

Langobardisaurus

Langobardisaurus (Greek for "Lombardy lizard"); pronounced LANG-oh-BARD-ih-SORE-us

Swamps of southern Europe

About 16 inches long and one pound

Long legs, neck and tail; bipedal posture

One of the strangest ancestral reptiles of the Triassic period, Langobardisaurus was a small, slender insect-eater whose hind legs were considerably longer than its front legs--leading paleontologists to infer that it was capable of running on two legs, at least when it was being chased by larger predators. Comically, judging by the structure of its toes, this "Lombardy lizard" would not have run like a theropod dinosaur (or a modern bird), but with an exaggerated, loping, saddle-backed gait that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Saturday morning kids' cartoon.

Limnoscelis

Limnoscelis (Greek for "marsh-footed"); pronounced LIM-no-SKELL-iss

Early Permian (300 million years ago)

About four feet long and 5-10 pounds

Large size; long tail; slender build

During the early Permian period, about 300 million years ago, North America was teeming with colonies of "amniotes," or reptile-like amphibians --throwbacks to their ancestors from tens of millions of years earlier. The importance of Limnoscelis lies in the fact that it was unusually large (about four feet from head to tail) and that it seems to have pursued a carnivorous diet, making it unlike most "diadectomorphs" (i.e, relatives of Diadectes ) of its time. With its short, stubby feet, though, Limnoscelis couldn't move very fast, meaning it must have targeted especially slow-moving prey.

Longisquama

The small, gliding reptile Longisquama had thin, narrow plumes jutting out from its vertebrae, which may or may not have been covered with skin, and the exact orientation of which is an enduring mystery. See an in-depth profile of Longisquama

Macrocnemus

Macrocnemus (Greek for "large tibia"); pronounced MA-crock-NEE-muss

Lagoons of southern Europe

Middle Triassic (245-235 million years ago)

About two feet long and one pound

Long, slender body; frog-like hind legs

Yet another prehistoric reptile that doesn't fit easily into any specific category, Macrocnemus is classified as an "archosaurimorph" lizard, meaning that it vaguely resembled the archosaurs of the late Triassic period (which eventually evolved into the first dinosaurs ) but was in fact only a distant cousin. This long, slender, one-pound reptile seems to have made its living by prowling the lagoons of middle Triassic southern Europe for insects and other invertebrates; otherwise, it remains a bit of a mystery, which will unfortunately remain the case pending future fossil discoveries.

Megalancosaurus

Megalancosaurus (Greek for "big-forelimbed lizard"); pronounced MEG-ah-LAN-coe-SORE-us

Woodlands of southern Europe

Late Triassic (230-210 million years ago)

Bird-like skull; opposing digits on hind feet

Known informally as a "monkey lizard," Megalancosaurus was a tiny ancestral reptile of the Triassic period that seems to have spent its entire life high up in trees, and thus evolved some features reminiscent of both birds and arboreal monkeys. For example, the males of this genus were equipped with opposing digits on their hind feet, which presumably allowed them to hang on tight during the act of mating, and Megalancosaurus also possessed a bird-like skull and pair of distinctly avian forelimbs. As far as we can tell, however, Megalancosaurus did not have feathers, and despite the speculation of some paleontologists it was almost certainly not ancestral to modern birds.

The early Permian Mesosaurus was one of the first reptiles to return to a partially aquatic lifestyle, a throwback to the ancestral amphibians that preceded it by tens of millions of years. See an in-depth profile of Mesosaurus

Milleretta ("Miller's little one"); pronounced MILL-eh-RET-ah

About two feet long and 5-10 pounds

Relatively large size; lizard-like appearance

Despite its name--"Miller's little one," after the paleontologist who discovered it--the two-foot-long Milleretta was a comparatively large prehistoric reptile for its time and place, late Permian South Africa. Although it looked like a modern lizard, Milleretta occupied an obscure side branch of reptile evolution, the anapsids (named for the lack of characteristic holes in their skulls), the only living descendants of which are turtles and tortoises. To judge by its relatively long legs and sleek build, Milleretta was capable of skittering at high speeds in pursuit of its insect prey.

The only prehistoric reptile ever to be named after a sitting president, Obamadon was a fairly unremarkable animal: a foot-long, insect-eating lizard that disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous period along with its dinosaur cousins. See an in-depth profile of Obamadon

Orobates; pronounced ORE-oh-BAH-teez

Undisclosed

Long body; short legs and skull

There wasn't a single "aha!" moment when the most advanced prehistoric amphibians evolved into the first true reptiles . That's why it's so hard to describe Orobates; this late Permian creature was technically a "diadectid," a line of reptile-like tetrapods characterized by the much better-known Diadectes . The importance of the small, slender, stubby-legged Orobates is that it's one of the most primitive diadectids yet identified, for example, whereas Diadectes was capable of foraging far inland for food, Orobates seems to have been restricted to a marine habitat. Further complicating matters, Orobates lived a full 40 million years after Diadectes, a lesson in how evolution doesn't always take a straight path!

Owenetta ("Owen's little one"); pronounced OH-wen-ET-ah

Late Permian (260-250 million years ago)

Large head; lizard-like body

The thickets of paleontology become densely tangled when experts deal with obscure prehistoric reptiles that never made it out of the Permian period, and left no major living descendants. A case in point is Owenetta, which (after decades of disagreement) has tentatively been classified as a "procolophonian parareptile," a phrase that requires some unpacking. Procolophonians (including the eponymous genus Procolophon) are believed to have been distantly ancestral to modern turtles and tortoises, while the word "parareptile" applies to various branches of anapsid reptiles that went extinct hundreds of millions of years ago. The issue still isn't settled; the exact taxonomic position of Owenetta in the reptile family tree is being constantly reassessed.

Pareiasaurus

Pareiasaurus (Greek for "helmet cheeked lizard"); pronounced PAH-ray-ah-SORE-us

Floodplains of southern Africa

About eight feet long and 1,000-2,000 pounds

Thick-set body with light armor plating; blunt snout

During the Permian period, pelycosaurs and therapsids occupied the mainstream of reptile evolution--but there were also plenty of bizarre "one-offs," chief among them the creatures known as pareiasaurs. The eponymous member of this group, Pareiasaurus, was an anapsid reptile that looked like a grey, skinless buffalo on steroids, mottled with various warts and odd protrusions that likely served some armoring function. As is often the case with animals that give their names to broader families, less is known about Pareiasurus than about a better-known pareiasaur of Permian southern Africa, Scutosaurus. (Some paleontologists speculate that pareiasaurs may have lain at the root of turtle evolution , but not everyone is convinced!)

Petrolacosaurus

Petrolacosaurus; pronounced PET-roe-LACK-oh-SORE-us

Late Carboniferous (300 million years ago)

About 16 inches long and less than a pound

Small size; splayed limbs; long tail

Probably the unlikeliest creature ever to be portrayed on the popular BBC series Walking with Beasts , Petrolacosaurus was a tiny, lizard-like reptile of the Carboniferous period that's famous for being the earliest known diapsid (a family of reptiles, comprising archosaurs , dinosaurs and crocodiles , that had two characteristic holes in their skulls). However, the BBC committed a boo-boo when it posited Petrolacosaurus as a plain-vanilla reptile ancestral to both synapsids (which comprise therapsids, the "mammal-like reptiles," as well as true mammals) and diapsids; since it was already a diapsid, Petrolacosaurus couldn't have been directly ancestral to synapsids!

Philydrosauras

Philydrosauras (Greek derivation uncertain); pronounced FIE-lih-droe-SORE-us

Shallow waters of Asia

Middle Jurassic (175 million years ago)

Less than a foot long and a few ounces

Probably fish and insects

Small size; long tail; lizard-like body

Normally, a creature like Philydrosauras would be relegated to the fringes of paleontology: it was small and inoffensive, and occupied an obscure branch of the reptile evolutionary tree (the "choristoderans," a family of semi-aquatic diapsid lizards). However, what makes this particular choristoderan stands out is than an adult specimen was fossilized in the company of its six offspring--the only reasonable explanation being that Philydrosauras cared for its young (at least briefly) after they were born. While it's likely that at least some reptiles of the earlier Mesozoic Era cared for their young as well, the discovery of Philydrosaurus gives us conclusive, fossilized proof of this behavior!

Procolophon

Procolophon (Greek for "before the end"); pronounced pro-KAH-low-fon

Deserts of Africa, South America and Antarctica

Early Triassic (250-245 million years ago)

Small size; sharp beak; lightly armored head

Like its fellow vegetarian, Hypsognathus, Procolophon was one of the few anapsid reptiles to survive beyond the Permian-Triassic boundary 250 million years ago (anapsid reptiles are distinguished by the characteristic lack of holes in their skulls, and are represented today only by modern turtles and tortoises). To judge from its sharp beak, oddly shaped teeth and relatively strong forelimbs, Procolophon evaded both predators and the daytime heat by burrowing underground, and may have subsisted on roots and tubers rather than above-ground vegetation.

Scleromochlus

Scleromochlus (Greek for "hardened lever"); pronounces SKLEH-roe-MOE-kluss

Late Triassic (210 million years ago)

About 4-5 inches long and a few ounces

Small size; long legs and tail

Every now and then, the vagaries of fossilization throw a bony wrench into the carefully laid plans of paleontologists. A good example is the tiny Scleromochlus, a skittering, long-limbed, late Triassic reptile that (as far as experts can tell) was either ancestral to the first pterosaurs or occupied a poorly understood "dead end" in reptilian evolution . Some paleontologists assign Scleromochlus to the controversial family of archosaurs known as "ornithodirans," a group which may or may not even turn out to make sense from a taxonomic standpoint. Confused yet?

Scutosaurus

Scutosaurus (Greek for "shield lizard"); pronounced SKOO-toe-SORE-us

Riverbanks of Eurasia

About six feet long and 500-1,000 pounds

Short, straight legs; thick body; short tail

Scutosaurus appears to have been a relatively evolved anapsid reptile that was, however, far removed from the mainstream of reptile evolution (the anapsids weren't nearly as important, historically speaking, as contemporary therapsids, archosaurs and pelycosaurs ). This buffalo-sized herbivore had rudimentary armor plating, which covered its thick skeleton and well-muscled torso; it clearly needed some form of defense, since it must have been an exceptionally slow and lumbering creature. Some paleontologists speculate that Scutosaurus may have roamed the floodplains of the late Permian period in large herds, signaling to one another with loud bellows--a supposition supported by an analysis of this prehistoric reptile's unusually large cheeks.

Spinoaequalis

Spinoaequalis (Greek for "symmetrical spine"); pronounced SPY-no-ay-KWAL-iss

About one foot long and less than a pound

Marine organisms

Slender body; long, flat tail

Spinoaequalis is an important evolutionary "first" in two different ways: 1) it was one of the first true reptiles to "de-evolve" to a semi-aquatic lifestyle, not long after ancestral reptiles like Hylonomus had themselves evolved from amphibian ancestors, and 2) it was one of the first diapsid reptiles, meaning it possessed two characteristic holes on the sides of its skull (a trait Spinoaequalis shared with its rough contemporary, Petrolacosaurus). The "type fossil" of this late Carboniferous reptile was discovered in Kansas, and its proximity to the remains of saltwater fish are a hint that it may have occasionally migrated from its freshwater habitat into the ocean, possibly for mating purposes.

Tseajaia (Navajo for "rock heart"); pronounced SAY-ah-HI-yah

About three feet long and a few pounds

Probably plants

Small size; long tail

Over 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous period, the most advanced amphibians began to evolve into the first true reptiles --but the first stop was the appearance of "amniotes," reptile-like amphibians that laid their eggs on dry land. As amniotes go, Tseajaia was relatively undifferentiated (read "plaid vanilla") but also extremely derived, since it actually dates to the beginning of the Permian period, tens of millions of years after the first true reptiles appeared. It has been classified as belonging to a "sister group" of the diadectids (typified by Diadectes ), and was closely related to Tetraceratops .

• Prehistoric Amphibian Pictures and Profiles
• Pelycosaur Pictures and Profiles
• Pictures and Profiles of Therapsids
• Early Dinosaur Pictures and Profiles
• Prosauropod Dinosaur Pictures and Profiles
• Prehistoric Crocodile Evolution
• Titanosaur Dinosaur Pictures and Profiles
• Eunotosaurus
• Duck-Billed Dinosaur Pictures and Profiles
• Horned, Frilled Dinosaur Profiles and Pictures
• Sauropod Dinosaur Pictures and Profiles
• Ichthyosaur Pictures and Profiles
• Prehistoric Primate Pictures and Profiles
• Types of Raptor Dinosaurs
• Prehistoric Marsupial Pictures and Profiles
• Prehistoric Bird Pictures and Profiles

Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

The Oldest Airborne Vertebrate Animal Was a Reptile With ‘Weird’ Wings

Paleontologists describe a 255-million-year-old weigeltisaurid fossil that likely glided through the air with the help of expansive winglike membranes

Tess Joosse

Since the Middle Ages, humans have mined a rich deposit of shale stretching across Europe for copper, zinc, silver — and fossils. In 1992, a fossil collector in eastern Germany pulled a strange skeleton out of the mining refuse from this rocky layer. It had a pointy crown of horns, thin limbs and peculiar rods stretching out from its chest.

“These are a really weird set of bones. They don’t seem to exist in pretty much any other vertebrate animal,” said Adam Pritchard , an assistant curator of paleontology at the Virginia Museum of Natural History and former Peter Buck postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History .

The fossil, it turns out, is an ancient reptile named Weigeltisaurus jaekeli , a reptile that lived over 250 million years ago — before the dinosaurs. Pritchard and Hans-Dieter Sues , curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum, have published a new detailed analysis of the specimen in the scientific journal PeerJ. They posit that the animal, known as a weigeltisaurid, used those bony rods to support winglike membranes used for gliding, making it the oldest-known airborne vertebrate animal.

A strange specimen

The fossil hunter found the strange skeleton by splitting pieces of shale, cracking the fossil into two slabs. One slab ended up in the hands of a private collector and likely contains pieces of the reptile's bones. The other slab held most of the skeleton and landed in the collection of the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany. Scientists pinpointed the fossil in the second slab as a  Weigeltisaurus , which was first described from another fossil in 1930, but the reptile's body shape still remained an enigma to paleontologists.  

Over the years, some researchers suggested that the long bones protruding from the specimen’s abdomen could have allowed the animal to glide through the air like a flying squirrel. But the skeleton in the fossil is curved in on itself and some bones are overlapping, making it hard to tell if they’re just ribs, or something else.

“There are very few things like it,” Sues said of the fossil. A few other specimens from the same species have also been unearthed in England, Russia and Madagascar, but the fossil housed in the Karlsruhe Museum provides the most complete example of the animal’s anatomy. “This is definitely the one that brings it all together,” Pritchard said.

Pritchard saw the skeleton referenced in the scientific literature over the years as a grad student researching the evolution of early reptiles during the Permian Period, which lasted between 299 and 251 million years ago. “But no one had really gone in and done a very fine, detailed analysis of the skeleton of these animals.” When Pritchard came to the Smithsonian as a postdoc in search of a meaty project to dig his teeth into, Sues suggested he take a closer look at the weigeltisaurid.

Quality fossil time

Pritchard flew to Germany for a week to pore over the fossil at its home in the Karlsruhe museum’s collections. “I'm of the mind that if you're going to make a fossil the focus of a study you should spend a very large amount of quality time with it in person,” he said.

He took pages of copious notes, making an inventory of all the individual bones and building his own interpretation of how they all might fit together. “And then I photographed the heck out of it,” Pritchard said, to be sure he wouldn’t miss one tiny detail in the bones once he came back to the Smithsonian.

After painstakingly measuring every rib, finger and toe, Pritchard laid out the weigeltisaurid’s

bones in several drawings and diagrams. He also mapped where the animal might fit on the reptile family tree by comparing each of its anatomical traits with those of other ancient lizards. Though it probably looked something like a chameleon, the weigeltisaurid belongs to an evolutionary line that split off from the lizards, crocodiles and snakes we know today.

“These are a more ancient lineage than any of those animals,” Pritchard explained.

Unique gliders

Initially, Pritchard looked at this project as a chance to explore a curious fossil on a deep level. “But as I got into the work, it became clear to me that there was one question that kind of remained. And that is the identity of the bones that seem to have formed the gliding membrane,” he said.

Pritchard and his colleagues’ analysis shows that there are more wing bones than vertebrae and that they lay separate from the rest of the skeleton, confirming that they would have supported two wide flaps extending from each side of the animal’s abdomen. This is a singular trait, Sues explained. There are gliding lizards that exist today, but their “wings” are attached to their ribs, he said.

While Pritchard and Sues are confident that weigeltisaurids were gliders, there’s not a lot else known about the animal’s life history. “I would love to know how they grew,” Pritchard said. “What did it look like when it popped out of the egg?” He also wonders about what the weigeltisaurid snacked on. His best guess is bugs, but he can’t be totally sure unless some direct fossil evidence turns up. “We don’t have a weigeltisaurid with insect material inside its abdominal region. But that would be cool,” Pritchard said.

Though he’s not currently working on these questions, Pritchard said that learning more about weigeltisauird and its relatives can give us a better appreciation for the diversity of reptiles — even before dinosaurs came on the scene. “Among paleontologists there’s this sense that once you get into the age of dinosaurs, that’s when reptiles really take off, develop all kinds of amazing features and just come into their own,” he said. But earlier animals like Weigeltisaurus are proof that reptiles have always been “super weird,” he explained. “They’re doing strange things that, if we didn’t have the fossils, we never would have expected.”

Editor's note: the headline was updated to clarify that the repitle was the oldest airborne vertebrate animal. 

Related Stories: What We’ve Discovered About the ‘Tyrant Lizard King’ Since the Nation’s T. rex Was Unearthed Scientists Give Old Dinosaur a New Name Q&A: Smithsonian Dinosaur Expert Helps T. rex Strike a New Pose An Elegy to Hatcher the Triceratops A Smithsonian Dino-Celebrity Finally Tells All

Tess Joosse | | READ MORE

Tess Joosse is an intern in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Her writing has appeared in Science, Scientific American, Inside Science, Eos, Mongabay and the Mercury News, among other outlets. Tess recently graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with an MS in science communication. She also holds a BA in biology from Oberlin College. You can find her at https://www.tessjoosse.com/ .

Pre-reptile may be earliest known to walk upright on all fours

A newly published analysis of the bones of Bunostegos akokanensis , a 260-million-year-old pre-reptile, finds that it likely stood upright on all-fours, like a cow or a hippo, making it the earliest known creature to do so.

To date all of the known pareiasaurs who roved the supercontinent of Pangea in the Permian era a quarter of a billion years ago were sprawlers whose limbs would jut out from the side of the body and then continue out or slant down from the elbow (like some modern lizards). Morgan Turner, lead author of the study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology , expected Bunostegos would be a sprawler, too, but the bones of the animal's forelimbs tell a different story.

"A lot of the animals that lived around the time had a similar upright or semi-upright hind limb posture, but what's interesting and special about Bunostegos is the forelimb, in that it's anatomy is sprawling-precluding and seemingly directed underneath its body--unlike anything else at the time," said Turner who performed the analysis under the supervision of Professor Christian Sidor while a student at the University of Washington. Now Turner is a graduate student at Brown University. "The elements and features within the forelimb bones won't allow a sprawling posture. That is unique."

The findings allowed Turner, Sidor and her co-authors to characterize how Bunostegos might have looked. Standing like a cow, and about the same size.

"Imagine a cow-sized, plant-eating reptile with a knobby skull and bony armor down its back," said co-author Linda Tsuji of the Royal Ontario Museum, who discovered the fossils in Niger along with Sidor and a team of paleontologists in 2003 and 2006.

Four forelimb findings

Turner examined much of the skeleton of several individuals. The findings that matter most, however, are all in the forelimbs. In particular, four observations make the case, she said, that Bunostegos stood differently than all the rest, with the legs entirely beneath the body.

Starting at the shoulder joint, or the glenoid fossa, the orientation of it is facing down such that the humerus (the bone running from shoulder to elbow) would be vertically oriented underneath. It would restrict the humerus from sticking out to the side, too.

Meanwhile Bunostegos 's humerus is not twisted like those of sprawlers. In a sprawler, the twist is what could allow the humerus to jut out to the side at the shoulder but then orient the forearm downward from the elbow. But the humerus of Bunostegos has no twist suggesting that only if the elbow and shoulders were aligned under the body, could the foot actually reach the ground, Turner said.

The elbow joint is also telling. Unlike in sprawling pareiasaurs, which had considerable mobility at the elbow, the movement of Bunostegos 's elbow is more limited. The way the radius and ulna (forearm bones) join with the humerus forms a hinge-like joint, and wouldn't allow for the forearm to swing out to the sides. Instead, it would only swing in a back and forth direction, like a human knee does.

Finally, the ulna is longer than the humerus in Bunostegos , which is a common trait among non-sprawlers, Turner said.

"Many other sprawling 4-legged animals have the reverse ratio," she said.

Going back 260 million years

The idea that Bunostegos would be an outlier in terms of its posture matches well with the idea that it was somewhat of an outlier in its choice of habitat.

" Bunostegos was an isolated pareiasaur," Turner said.

Way back when, Niger was an arid place (like some of it is today) where plants and water sources might well have been few and far between. Scientists have associated walking upright on all fours with a more energy efficient posture than sprawling. For the long journeys between meals, Turner said, the upright posture might have been necessary for survival.

The significance of such an early example of the upright posture is that Bunostegos dates very far back on the evolutionary tree, pushing back the clock on when this posture shows up in evolution.

But Turner said she wouldn't be surprised if other animals of the time are eventually also found to have similarities to this posture, which evolved independently in reptiles and mammals several times over the eras.

"Posture, from sprawling to upright, is not black or white, but instead is a gradient of forms," Turner said. "There are many complexities about the evolution of posture and locomotion we are working to better understand every day. The anatomy of Bunostegos is unexpected, illuminating, and tells us we still have much to learn." At Brown, Turner is working in the lab of Professor Stephen Gatesy, where she is studying a continuum of postures and locomotion in ancient creatures. In addition to Turner, Tsuji and Sidor, Oumarou Ide of the University of Niamey in Niger is an author of the study.

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Journal Reference :

• Morgan L. Turner, Linda A. Tsuji, Oumarou Ide, Christian A. Sidor. The vertebrate fauna of the upper Permian of Niger—IX. The appendicular skeleton ofBunostegos akokanensis(Parareptilia: Pareiasauria) . Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology , 2015; e994746 DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2014.994746

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Fossil hunters find additional remains of jawbone from a giant marine reptile

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Millions of years ago, giant marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs were the dominant predators of the world's oceans. Researchers have now unearthed what may have been the largest of these creatures, an ichthyosaur roughly 82 feet in length. That's more than two school buses long. Here's science reporter Ari Daniel.

ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: This all started not quite eight years ago. A fossil collector was combing a beach in Somerset in southwest England when he came upon chunks of fossilized bone. He showed them to his longtime friend, paleontologist Dean Lomax, based at the universities of Bristol and Manchester.

DEAN LOMAX: They fit together perfectly, like an ancient prehistoric jigsaw puzzle, and we could work out it belongs to a jawbone of a reptile that swam in the seas at the time of the dinosaurs.

DANIEL: A marine reptile called an ichthyosaur - think chunky shark with a long, toothy snout, fins and four flippers.

LOMAX: They didn't come on to land. These are reptiles very, very distantly related to things like crocodiles.

DANIEL: The specimen was 202 million years old from the end of the Triassic Period. But the thing that struck Lomax was how big the jawbone fragment was - over three feet long.

LOMAX: It suggests that it was from something unusual and something exceedingly large.

DANIEL: Lomax published a description of the bone, but it was partly eroded.

LOMAX: What we'd hoped for - we kept our fingers crossed - maybe more specimens would come to light in the future.

DANIEL: Then one day in 2020, 11-year-old Ruby Reynolds and her father found two pieces of a fossilized bone on a beach in Somerset.

RUBY REYNOLDS: I just went further up the beach to the muddy slope and it was just sort of lying there. I was just happy, really.

DANIEL: She and her dad did some internet sleuthing, discovered Lomax and sent him an email.

REYNOLDS: Saying, you know, hey, Dr. Lomax, we think we found another one of your giant ichthyosaur jawbones.

DANIEL: They later located additional fragments, allowing Lomax and his colleagues to piece together a second jawbone from the same kind of giant ichthyosaur. They were now confident this was a new species, one they coined Ichthyotitan severnensis that was likely massive.

LOMAX: Genuinely enormous, about the length of a blue whale, and that puts it at probably the largest marine reptile.

DANIEL: With this second specimen in hand, he invited the amateur fossil finders to co-author a publication with him, including Reynolds, who's now 15.

RUBY: It's just crazy. Never something I would have expected to happen.

DANIEL: The results appear in the journal PLOS ONE. Kelsey Stilson is a biomechanist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, who wasn't involved in the research.

KELSEY STILSON: There were things that we can't even possibly imagine in the past. We can get little hints, and this is one little hint at kind of this larger picture.

DANIEL: A picture of how life evolved on Earth. The Triassic was, in Stilson's words, a really weird time.

STILSON: That's when you see the first very early mammals and the first very early dinosaurs - everything starting right then.

DANIEL: At the end of the Triassic - that's when these colossal ichthyosaurs reigned, right before a mass extinction event that swallowed up these animals forever. Dean Lomax again.

LOMAX: No marine reptile ever reached such gigantic sizes ever again.

DANIEL: Not all ichthyosaurs vanished, but even the smaller ones eventually went extinct, which created an opening in the ocean.

LOMAX: A niche to be filled, which is where eventually you had mammals, including the first whales, eventually made that transition into the ocean.

DANIEL: Where they took over as the dominant marine predators. Underwater reptilian rule was over.

For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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• 11 August 2023

This ancient reptile wanted to be a whale

The reconstruction of the skeleton of Hupehsuchus nanchangensis (artist’s impression) suggests that it gulped down plankton as it swam. Credit: Cheng Long

A small, swimming reptile with a big snout that lived some 248 million years ago could have been the world’s first filter feeder 1 . Modern whales didn’t develop the ability to use baleen plates to feed until about 34 million years ago.

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2.1 Alfred Wegener and the Strange Idea of Drifting Continents

Charlene Estrada

Our “Contracting Earth”?

How can we explain the movement of land around us over long periods of time? Sometimes volcanoes spring up when there were previously none. Other times, the ground shakes in certain places. Some areas, like Arizona, are home to amazing mountain ranges and valleys, and others are island destinations. How did we make sense of any of this?

Science is an evolving thing, which means that scientists don’t always get it right. Case in point: up until the mid-1900s we believed our planet formed all its breath-taking features by “squeezing” them out! These scientists rightly believed that Earth was a ball of hot, molten material when it first formed in space. Where they went wrong, however, is the belief that the cooling outer shell, contracted like a dried-out raisin [1].

Furthermore, these scientists thought that new landscapes formed through a process called isostasy . This process involved the continents and ocean basins sinking and rising up as they experienced changes in density [1].

Continental Drift

Alfred Wegener (1880-1930) was a German scientist who specialized in meteorology and climatology. He enjoyed field work in Greenland to establish weather monitoring stations and made great contributions to climatology. However, as an avid explorer of the planet, he had something to say about how it operated. In 1910, he publicly disagreed with the extent that the role of isostasy played in the Contracting Earth hypothesis. He furthermore noticed some patterns in our world map that led him to propose a radical counter-hypothesis: the concept of Continental Drift. [2]

Ever since the first world map, people have noticed the similarities between the coastlines of South America and Africa. Would it be such a stretch to imagine these continents being pushed together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? Indeed, what if all of the continents were once merged together at one point as a single landmass, and they broke apart for some reason?

The idea that South America and Africa were once attached as a single landmass was not a new one; Antonio Snider-Pellegrini even did preliminary work on continental separation and matched fossils between the two continents in 1858 [2]. But Wegener’s contribution to this idea was new and interesting in that he collected a tremendous amount of data on these two continents. Let’s review some of this evidence below!

The fossils of the ancient life that existed hundreds of millions of years ago have been found along the separate coastlines of not just Africa and South America, but also India, Australia, and Antarctica (see left figure)! These organisms appeared to be exactly the same, but how could they have lived on separate continents? For example, neither the reptile Mesosaurus nor Cynognathus, which were found in South America and Africa could live in salty ocean water. Therefore, Wegener argued, these animals could not have crossed the ocean to live on the continents if they were always separated. That meant that at one time, the continents had to have been merged together as a single landmass!

Those that disagreed with Wegener’s hypothesis made this counter argument: perhaps the continents were in the same configurations hundreds of millions of years ago as they are today. Instead of swimming across deep oceans, these ancient reptiles might have traveled between the continents on narrow land bridges that stretched across the oceans [1]. The only reason we don’t see these land bridges today is because they have sunk down or eroded away.

Which idea makes more sense to you: the continents once being merged together OR the idea of ancient land bridges? Science is about a healthy debate given data and evidence, but Wegener was not done!

Geologic Evidence

Even if ancient reptiles and animals crossed the oceans on land bridges, as Wegener’s opponents argued, there was something that they could not explain: the Geologic Record.

Think of a volcanic eruption, a landslide, a winding river, or a sandy beach. When a layer of rock is deposited, it reflects an environment or event that has happened in the area. Each layer of rock is like a page in a book that each of us can learn to read. Therefore, if one area has a distinct sequence of layers, a trained geologist can tell you that region’s unique history. Let’s keep this “book” metaphor in mind.

When Wegener examined the layers of rock between two separate continents, he found something exciting. Places an ocean apart from each other, such as the Appalachians in the United States and the mountains extending through Greenland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Norway had the same sequence of rocks. That is essentially finding the same book two continents apart.

What would a reasonable person conclude when finding the same book with two different covers? The same author wrote it. Much in the same spirit, Wegener concluded that these two mountain ranges in North America and Europe actually formed as one single chain hundreds of millions of years ago when these two continents were merged together. North America and Europe then drifted apart to the place we see them now on the world map.

Climatic Evidence

Let’s not forget that Wegener was a climatologist, and as he traveled the continents, he began to notice some strange patterns in the geologic record. Wegener found indications that places like southern Africa, India, Australia, and the Arabian subcontinent were once glaciated about 250 million years ago. He also discovered fossils of tropical plants in areas north of the Arctic Circle. In short, the rocks and fossils Wegener observed were telling him that places that we know today are cold were once hot, and places that are hot were once cold.

Wegener used these observations to further conclude that the continents must have moved. For example, Wegener knew that glaciers only formed near the poles in the modern day climate; therefore, he argued that to have glaciers, India, Australia, and Africa must have once been centered around the south pole. Similarly, today’s Arctic Circle must have once been around the tropics – approximately 23 °N and S in along Earth’s latitude to host tropical plant life [3].

Putting the Puzzle Together

After gathering a significant amount of evidence across the world, Alfred Wegener took the bold step of publishing his Continental Drift hypothesis in 1915 in a book entitled Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane or “The Origin of Continents and Oceans”. In this book, Wegener presents all of his evidence, and asserts that the continents must have once been together in a single landmass called “Ur kontinent” ( supercontinent ) or “Pangäa” (entire earth). Over large timescales of millions of years, this landmass broke apart, and the continents shifted into the configuration as we know them today.

In order to successfully argue for Continental Drift, Wegener also had the monumental task of dismantling the case for the Contracting Earth hypothesis and the popular idea that all ancient life moved across separate continents using narrow land bridges. In his book, Wegener makes the following appeal:

Backlash and Legacy

How Bad Was the Criticism Against Wegener?

“delirious ravings”

“moving crust disease and wandering pole plague.”

“Germanic pseudo­-science”

“wrong for a stranger to the facts he handles to generalize from them”

“utter damned rot” 

Alfred Wegener’s Final Expedition

Wegener’s scientific contributions were not only in the field of geosciences. As a climatologist, one of his passions was exploring the north of Greenland, which in the early 1900s had not been completely mapped. Wegener helped establish weather-monitoring stations on Greenland that took many readings of its brutal winter weather. This project became a lifelong love for Wegener despite the deadly risks each expedition posed. In 1928, even though Wegener was approaching his 50s, he departed again to explore northern Greenland. The weather was particularly bad (-76 degrees F) and one of the nearby camps was running low on food. He managed to travel through the terrible weather to resupply the camp on dog sleds, but the success was short-lived. Even with supplies, it was clear that the food would not last long enough for everyone. Therefore, he and another colleague volunteered to go back into the weather in the hopes of traveling to another camp. Wegener died on the journey from a heart attack, and his grave was marked with skis. His brother eventually discovered his body, but the family agreed that Wegener belonged in the field he so loved, and his final resting place has since remained Greenland [5,6].

a gravitational reaction of the Earth's crust to flex up or down when a large amount of material is deposited or eroded away.

A prevalent scientific idea up until the mid-20th century that states that Earth's landscapes tend to form due to the contraction of its crust.

A hypothesis that claims the Earth's landforms, specifically continents, move across the oceans over tens of millions of years.

a massive landmass composed of multiple continents formed by the collision of tectonic plates with smaller continents.

Dynamic Planet: Exploring Geological Disasters and Environmental Change 2022 Copyright © 2021 by Charlene Estrada is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Ancient, 30-foot relative of great white shark unearthed in Mexico quarry

"Exceptionally preserved" fossils of an ancient shark that lived alongside the dinosaurs has finally revealed what the predator looked like — and why it may have gone extinct.

Complete fossils from an enormous shark that lived alongside the dinosaurs reveal crucial information about this enigmatic predator — including it being an ancient relative of the great white shark . 

The sharks, from the genus Ptychodus , were first discovered in the mid-eighteenth century. Descriptions of this genus were largely based on their teeth — which could be nearly 22 inches (55 centimeters) long and 18 inches (45 cm) wide, and were adapted for crushing shells — found in numerous marine deposits dating to the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago).

Without the ability to examine a fully intact specimen, researchers had hotly debated what the shark's body shape might look like — until now.

"The discovery of complete Ptychodus specimens is really exciting because it solves one of the most striking enigmas in vertebrate paleontology," lead author Romain Vullo , a researcher at Géosciences Rennes, told Live Science in an email.

In a study published Wednesday (April 24) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , researchers have described complete fossils of the shark discovered in limestone quarries in Nuevo León, northeastern Mexico. Its outline was still fully preserved, and its body shape suggests it hunted sea turtles — which could explain its extinction around 76 million years ago as it was competing with other animals that ate the same prey.

The specimens "show an exquisite preservation," because they were deposited in a quiet area with no scavengers, Vullo said. "The carcasses of animals were rapidly buried in a soft lime mud before being entirely disarticulated."

Related: 325 million-year-old shark graveyard discovered deep within Mammoth Cave harbors new fossilized species 

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Analysis of the fossils reveals this large predator belonged to the mackerel shark group (Lamniformes), which includes great whites ( Carcharodon carcharias ), mako, and salmon sharks. It grew to around 33 feet (10 meters) long and is known for its massive, grinding teeth, which are unlike those we see in sharks today. 

It was widely believed that Ptychodus fed on invertebrates from the seabed — the ancient relatives of clams and mussels. But the new fossils challenge that, revealing that this ancient shark had a streamlined body shape, indicating it was a fast-swimming pelagic predator. "The newly discovered fossils from Mexico indicate that Ptychodus looked like the living porbeagle shark," Vullo said, but with "unique grinding dentition."

— Terror beast fossils unearthed in Greenland are more than half a billion years old

— 390 million-year-old fossilized forest is the oldest ever discovered

— Massive graveyard of fossilized shark teeth found deep in the Indian Ocean  

This new information has led the researchers to believe it preyed on large ammonites — a type of crustacean with a hard shell — and sea turtles. 

" Ptychodus occupied a special ecological niche in Late Cretaceous seas," Vullo said, because it was the only pelagic shark that was adapted to eating hard-shelled prey such as turtles. This may explain why it died out around 10 million years before the extinction event that ended the Cretaceous period. "Toward the end of the Cretaceous, these large sharks were likely in direct competition with some marine reptiles (mosasaurs) targeting the same prey," he said. 

Editor's note: The headline of a previous version of this article said Ptychodus was an ancestor of great white sharks . This was corrected to say it was a relative at 6:24 ET on April 24.

Melissa Hobson is a freelance writer who specializes in marine science, conservation and sustainability, and particularly loves writing about the bizarre behaviors of marine creatures. Melissa has worked for several marine conservation organizations where she soaked up their knowledge and passion for protecting the ocean. A certified Rescue Diver, she gets her scuba fix wherever possible but is too much of a wimp to dive in the UK these days so tends to stick to tropical waters. Her writing has also appeared in National Geographic, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, New Scientist, VICE and more.

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