- Scientists have found the fossilised stays of a brand new sea lizard species
- Khinjaria acuta was 8 metres lengthy and would have lived alongside dinosaurs
The concept of an historic sea lizard with a demon’s face and dagger-like enamel may sound like a piece of science fiction.
But it was a actuality 66 million years in the past, in response to a brand new research.
Scientists have found the fossilised stays of a brand new sea lizard species that dominated the oceans.
Khinjaria acuta would have lived alongside dinosaurs, co-existing with behemoths comparable to Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops.
Around eight metres lengthy – about the identical size as an orca – Khinjaria had highly effective jaws and lengthy, dagger-like enamel to munch prey, giving it a ‘nightmarish look’, in response to researchers.
The crew stated the creature’s elongated cranium and jaw musculature suggests it had ‘a horrible biting drive’.
Khinjaria belongs to a household of big marine lizards often called mosasaurs, the traditional kinfolk of at present’s Komodo dragons and anacondas.
These creatures have been apex predators of their time, the scientists say, occupying prime positions within the oceans alongside fellow mosasaurs such because the ‘saw-toothed’ Xenodens and the ‘star-toothed’ Stelladen.
Dr Nick Longrich, of the Department of Life Sciences and the Milner Centre for Evolution on the University of Bath, stated: ‘What’s outstanding right here is the sheer variety of prime predators.
‘We have a number of species rising bigger than a fantastic white shark, and so they’re prime predators, however all of them have totally different enamel, suggesting they’re looking in numerous methods.
‘Some mosasaurs had enamel to pierce prey, others to chop, tear, or crush.
‘Now we’ve Khinjaria, with a brief face full of big, dagger-shaped enamel.
‘This is among the most various marine faunas seen anyplace, at any time in historical past, and it existed simply earlier than the marine reptiles and the dinosaurs went extinct.’
The researchers speculate that the area’s heat currents and nutrient-rich waters could have offered meals for giant numbers of marine creatures and, consequently, supported quite a few apex predators.
The research, printed within the journal Cretaceous Research, relies on an evaluation of a cranium and different skeletal stays uncovered at a phosphate mine south-east of Casablanca, the most important metropolis in Morocco.
Mosasaurs grew to become extinct across the similar time because the dinosaurs, round 66 million years in the past – in the direction of the tip of the Late Cretaceous interval.
While the precise explanation for their extinction will not be absolutely understood, it’s believed to be associated to the aftermath of an enormous asteroid affect within the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
When prime predators such because the mosasaurs disappeared, it opened the best way for whales and seals to grow to be dominant within the oceans, the researchers stated, and fish comparable to swordfish and tuna additionally appeared.
Modern marine meals chains now have just some massive apex predators, which embody orcas, white sharks, and leopard seals.
Dr Longrich stated: ‘There appears to have been an enormous change within the ecosystem construction up to now 66 million years.
‘This unimaginable variety of prime predators within the Late Cretaceous is uncommon, and we do not see that in trendy marine communities.’
He added: ‘Whether there’s one thing about marine reptiles that induced the ecosystem to be totally different, or the prey, or maybe the setting, we do not know.
‘But this was an extremely harmful time to be a fish, a sea turtle, or perhaps a marine reptile.’
