Fossil sea monster big enough to "bite a car"

Sort of a sea-going T-Rex big enough to gnaw on a Morris Minor.



Fossil sea monster big enough to "bite a car"

Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Reuters North American News Service

Feb 27, 2008 11:57 EST

OSLO, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The fossil of a 15 metre (50 ft) long "sea
monster" found in Arctic Norway was the biggest of its kind known to
science with dagger-like teeth in a mouth large enough to bite a small
car, researchers said on Wednesday.

The 150-million year old dinosaur-era pliosaur, a fierce marine
reptile, was about five metres (16 ft 5 in) longer than the previous
pliosaur record holder found in Australia.

"It's a new species and the biggest proven pliosaur," Joern Hurum, a
paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in Oslo who led the
expedition to dig up the fossil on the archipelago of Svalbard 1,300
km (800 miles) from the North Pole.

"A small car could fit inside its mouth," he told Reuters, adding the
lower jaw was about three metres (10 ft) long.

"Something like a Morris Minor would fit perfectly."

The Museum said that pliosaurs were the top marine predators of the
Jurassic era, preying upon squid-like animals, fish, and other marine
reptiles.

Another type of fossil marine reptile, the ichthyosaur, was bigger at
up to 23 metres (75 ft). "The pliosaur is not the biggest sea monster
but it's probably the most fierce," Hurum said, adding the fossil has
jagged teeth the size of cucumbers.

"The front flipper of our pliosaur alone is three metres long. We've
laid it out downstairs in the basement," he said.

Earlier estimates had been that the Norwegian pliosaur, popularly
dubbed "The Monster", was about 12 metres (40 ft) long, roughly as
long as Australia's kronosaurus.

The Arctic find "demonstrates that these gigantic animals inhabited
the northern seas of our planet during the age of dinosaurs," said
Patrick Druckenmiller of the University of Alaska Museum who was on
the expedition that found the fossil.

The Norwegian museum said that it was planning to return in mid-2008
to excavate a skull and skeleton of another gigantic pliosaur recently
found near "The Monster".

For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/
(Editing by Richard Williams)

Source: Reuters North American News Service
.