Reconstruction of a giant ichthyosaur from the late Triassic period, bulk-feeding on small squid. Photograph: Marcello Perillo/University of Bonn
The Guardian has a story about giant ichthyosaurs. A couple ichthyosaurs found in the Swiss Alps are shedding light on the feeding processes of these giant animals. The specimens, which lived during the Triassic Period, have enormous teeth. Large enough to help capture giant squid. A team of researchers have described their research about the two specimens of Shastasaurus sikkanniensis, which were discovered between 1976 and 1990, in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The remains of a huge sea creature with enormous teeth that could have helped it capture giant squid have been found in the Swiss Alps.
Ichthyosaurs were large marine reptiles with an elongated, snakey shape. They first emerged after the end of the Permian extinction, an event also known as the “great dying”, which occurred about 250m years ago and which wiped out more than two-thirds of species on land and 96% of marine species.
The toothy beast is one of three giant ichthyosaurs discovered in the Swiss Alps and is thought to have lived during the late Triassic period, about 205m years ago – potentially making them some of the last such behemoths.
The team said the findings helped resolve the conundrum of whether giant ichthyosaurs, like some smaller species of the creatures, had teeth.
Prof Martin Sander, of the University of Bonn, a co-author of the study, said: “It’s all very, very scanty evidence. We have these ghosts swimming in the late Triassic oceans for tens of millions of years, and we don’t know what they look like. It’s an embarrassment for palaeontology.
“For a while we thought they had teeth. Then we thought, well, we never find any teeth. Now we have the tooth of a giant and a giant tooth. So some of them have teeth.”
