WASHINGTON: In shallow waters about 242 million years ago, a strange marine reptile built unlike any other animal ever on Earth hunted for fish and squid, using an inordinately elongated neck to ambush prey. Suddenly and violently, its life ended - decapitated by a powerful predator.
The researchers studied neck and head remains of two species of Tanystropheus, detecting bite marks and other signs of trauma indicating decapitation. The larger species, the one that ate fish and squid, reached 6m long, though this individual was about 4m. The smaller species was about 1.5m long, with teeth indicating a diet of soft-shelled invertebrates like shrimp.
There was evidence of predation in the fossils of both species. One has two tooth-shaped punctures and a tooth scratch. The other has a pit caused by a tooth hitting the bone. Both bear bone injuries where the neck was severed. The attacker of the bigger Tanystropheus species likely was a large marine reptile, the researchers said, perhaps a species of: Cymbospondylus, 10m long; Nothosaurus, 7m long; or Helveticosaurus, 3.5m long.Tanystropheus, appearing during the Triassic Period at a time of evolutionary innovation following Earth's worst mass extinction, thrived across the northern hemisphere for 10 million years. It was a distant relative of the dinosaurs, which first appeared roughly 230 million years ago.