Researchers have described a Japanese mosasaur the size of a great white shark that terrorized Pacific seas 72 million years ago.
University of Cincinnati Associate Professor Takuya Konishi and his international co-authors described the mosasaur and placed it in a taxonomic context in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
The mosasaur was named for the place where it was found, Wakayama Prefecture. Researchers call it the Wakayama Soryu, which means blue dragon. Dragons are creatures of legend in Japanese folklore, Konishi said.
“In China, dragons make thunder and live in the sky. They became aquatic in Japanese mythology,” he said.
The specimen was discovered along the Aridagawa River in Wakayama by co-author Akihiro Misaki in 2006. Misaki was looking for fossils of invertebrates called ammonites when he found an intriguing dark fossil in the sandstone, Konishi said.
2023-12-12 19:00:05
Original from phys.org