Post by Neko Bazu on Feb 27, 2008 8:26:07 GMT -1
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7264856.stm
Good bloody God!
And people get scared enough when they see sharks in the water!
A fossilised "sea monster" unearthed on an Arctic island is the largest marine reptile known to science, Norwegian scientists have announced.
The 150 million-year-old specimen was found on Spitspergen, in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard, in 2006.
The Jurassic-era leviathan is one of 40 sea reptiles from a fossil "treasure trove" uncovered on the island.
Nicknamed "The Monster", the immense creature would have measured 15m (50ft) from nose to tail.
And during the last field expedition, scientists discovered the remains of another pliosaur which is thought to belong to the same species as The Monster - and may have been just as colossal.
The expedition's director Dr Jorn Hurum, from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, said the Svalbard specimen is 20% larger than the previous biggest marine reptile - a massive pliosaur from Australia called Kronosaurus.
"We have carried out a search of the literature, so we now know that we have the biggest [pliosaur]. It's not just arm-waving anymore," Dr Hurum told the BBC News website.
"The flipper is 3m long with very few parts missing. On Monday, we assembled all the bones in our basement and we amazed ourselves - we had never seen it together before."
The Monster's flipper alone measures 3m in length
Pliosaurs were a short-necked form of plesiosaur, a group of extinct reptiles that lived in the world's oceans during the age of the dinosaurs.
A pliosaur's body was tear drop-shaped with two sets of powerful flippers which it used to propel itself through the water.
"These animals were awesomely powerful predators," said plesiosaur palaeontologist Richard Forrest.
"If you compare the skull of a large pliosaur to a crocodile, it is very clear it is much better built for biting... by comparison with a crocodile, you have something like three or four times the cross-sectional space for muscles. So you have much bigger, more powerful muscles and huge, robust jaws.
"A large pliosaur was big enough to pick up a small car in its jaws and bite it in half."
The 150 million-year-old specimen was found on Spitspergen, in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard, in 2006.
The Jurassic-era leviathan is one of 40 sea reptiles from a fossil "treasure trove" uncovered on the island.
Nicknamed "The Monster", the immense creature would have measured 15m (50ft) from nose to tail.
And during the last field expedition, scientists discovered the remains of another pliosaur which is thought to belong to the same species as The Monster - and may have been just as colossal.
The expedition's director Dr Jorn Hurum, from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, said the Svalbard specimen is 20% larger than the previous biggest marine reptile - a massive pliosaur from Australia called Kronosaurus.
"We have carried out a search of the literature, so we now know that we have the biggest [pliosaur]. It's not just arm-waving anymore," Dr Hurum told the BBC News website.
"The flipper is 3m long with very few parts missing. On Monday, we assembled all the bones in our basement and we amazed ourselves - we had never seen it together before."
The Monster's flipper alone measures 3m in length
Pliosaurs were a short-necked form of plesiosaur, a group of extinct reptiles that lived in the world's oceans during the age of the dinosaurs.
A pliosaur's body was tear drop-shaped with two sets of powerful flippers which it used to propel itself through the water.
"These animals were awesomely powerful predators," said plesiosaur palaeontologist Richard Forrest.
"If you compare the skull of a large pliosaur to a crocodile, it is very clear it is much better built for biting... by comparison with a crocodile, you have something like three or four times the cross-sectional space for muscles. So you have much bigger, more powerful muscles and huge, robust jaws.
"A large pliosaur was big enough to pick up a small car in its jaws and bite it in half."
Good bloody God!
And people get scared enough when they see sharks in the water!
