A brand new species of Cretaceous hypercarnivorous ichthyosaur, Kyhytysuka sachicarum, has been described from a fossil present in Colombia.
Life reconstructions of Kyhytysuka sachicarum. Image credit score: Dirley Cortés.
Kyhytysuka sachicarum swam within the Earth’s oceans in the course of the Early Cretaceous epoch, some 130 million years in the past.
Its well-preserved 1-m-long cranium was uncovered in Colombia and initially assigned to a species referred to as Platypterygius sachicarum.
“This animal evolved a unique dentition that allowed it to eat large prey,” stated Dr. Hans Larsson, director of the Redpath Museum at McGill University.
“Whereas other ichthyosaurs had small, equally sized teeth for feeding on small prey, this new species modified its tooth sizes and spacing to build an arsenal of teeth for dispatching large prey, like big fishes and other marine reptiles.”
The massive image of ichthyosaur evolution is clarified with Kyhytysuka sachicarum, in accordance with the workforce.
“We compared this animal to other Jurassic and Cretaceous ichthyosaurs and were able to define a new type of ichthyosaurs,” stated Dr. Erin Maxwell, a researcher within the State Natural History Museum of Stuttgart.
“This shakes up the evolutionary tree of ichthyosaurs and lets us test new ideas of how they evolved.”
Kyhytysuka sachicarum comes from an vital transitional time in the course of the Early Cretaceous epoch.
At this time, the Earth was popping out of a comparatively cool interval, had rising sea ranges, and the supercontinent Pangea was splitting into northern and southern landmasses.
There was additionally a world extinction occasion on the finish of the Jurassic that modified marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
“Many classic Jurassic marine ecosystems of deep-water feeding ichthyosaurs, short-necked plesiosaurs, and marine-adapted crocodiles were succeeded by new lineages of long-necked plesiosaurs, sea turtles, large marine lizards called mosasaurs, and now this monster ichthyosaur,” stated Dirley Cortes, a graduate scholar on the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
“We are discovering many new species in the rocks this new ichthyosaur comes from.”
“We are testing the idea that this region and time in Colombia was an ancient biodiversity hotspot and are using the fossils to better understand the evolution of marine ecosystems during this transitional time.”
A paper on the findings was printed within the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
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Dirley Cortés et al. Re-appearance of hypercarnivore ichthyosaurs within the Cretaceous with differentiated dentition: revision of ‘Platypterygius’ sachicarum (Reptilia: Ichthyosauria, Ophthalmosauridae) from Colombia. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, printed on-line November 22, 2021; doi: 10.1080/14772019.2021.1989507