Ancient reptile skull discovered
A team of international researchers announced the discovery of a marine reptile closely resembling a swordfish with a 3-foot-long skull that existed more than 100 million years ago.
The preserved skull found in Colombia is of the ichthyosaur, which means “fish lizard.” Specimens closely resembled porpoises and grew up to 10 feet long. They aren’t technically dinosaurs, and with their paddle-like fins, they were among the fastest creatures in the ocean.
The species first appeared during the Triassic period about 250 million years ago but went extinct during the Cretaceous period, millions of years before dinosaurs vanished about 65 million years ago, according to Britannica.
Despite the creature’s long nose and mouth, it has long been thought the species fed only on small fish and other small sea creatures. But the skull discovery shows the species evolved into becoming a fearsome creature that was able to take on nearly any prey it wanted to. The team of researchers had its findings recently published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
“Its skull and dentition were highly adapted for eating really large prey, and that’s in contrast to most other ichthyosaurs that instead had small teeth in delicate skulls for eating small fish and other relatively small and soft prey,” Hans Larsson, director of the Redpath Museum at Mcgill University, said in an email to USA TODAY. “This is pretty large for its time and puts it near the top of its ancient ecosystem food chain.”