Giant fossil predator provides insights into the rise of modern marine ecosystem structures
 |
| By-National Geography |
An international team of scientists has described a fossil
marine predator measuring 8.6 meters in length (about 28 feet) recovered from
the Nevada desert in 2010 as representing the first top predator in marine food
chains feeding on prey similar to its own size. A paper with their description
will appear the week of Jan. 7, 2013 in the early electronic issue ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists
who studied the fossil include lead author Dr. Nadia Fröbisch and Prof. Jörg
Fröbisch (both at Museum für Naturkunde Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und
Biodiversitätsforschung), Prof. P. Martin Sander (Steinmann Institute of
Geology, Mineralogy, and Paleontology, Division of Paleontology, University of
Bonn), Prof. Lars Schmitz (W. M. Keck Science Department, Claremont McKenna,
Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges, Claremont, California) and Dr. Olivier Rieppel
(The Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois).
The 244-million-year-old fossil, named Thalattoarchon saurophagis (lizard-eating sovereign of the sea) is an
early representative of the ichthyosaurs, a group of marine reptiles that lived
at the same time as dinosaurs and roamed the oceans for 160 million years. It
had a massive skull and jaws armed with large teeth with cutting edges used to
seize and slice through other marine reptiles in the Triassic seas. Because it
was a meta-predator, capable of feeding on animals with bodies similar in size
to its own, Thalattoarchon was comparable to modern orca whales.
Remarkably, only eight million years prior to the appearance ofThalattoarchon, a
severe extinction at the end of the Permian period killed as many as 80 to 96
percent of species in the Earth's oceans. The rise of a predator such as Thalattoarchon documents the fast recovery and evolution
of a modern ecosystem structure after the extinction.
"Everyday we learn more about the biodiversity of our
planet including living and fossil species and their ecosystems" Dr.
Fröbisch said. "The new find characterizes the establishment of a new and
more advanced level of ecosystem structure. Findings like Thalattoarchon help us to understand the dynamics of our
evolving planet and ultimately the impact humans have on today's
environment."
"This
discovery is a good example of how we study the past in order to illuminate the
future," said Dr. Rieppel of The Field Museum.
The
ichthyosaur was recovered from what is today a remote mountain range in central
Nevada. Most of the animal was preserved, including the skull (except the front
of the snout), parts of the fins, and the complete vertebral column up to the
tip of the tail. Supported by a grant from the National Geographic Society's
Committee for Research and Exploration, the team of paleontologists took three
weeks to unearth the ichthyosaur and prepare it for its transport by helicopter
and truck out of the field.
Source: Field Museum
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