Monster swallows monster: Fossil reveals doubly fatal Triassic encounter - National Post

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Inside its stomach was the torso of a 12-foot-long (4 meters) Xinpusaurus, a type of marine reptile called an a thalattosaur. Its body design resembled a komodo dragon with four paddling limbs and teeth equipped for crushing shells. The Xinpusaurus was beheaded in the melee and its tail severed.

The stomach contents of a Guizhouichthyosaurus, a large Triassic Period marine reptile called an ichthyosaur that lived about 240 million years ago, representing the first direct evidence of ancient “megapredation” — one large animal eating another, in an illustration released August 20, 2020. Da-Yong Jiang, et al, iScience/Handout via REUTERS

“Nobody was there to film it,” but it is possible to interpret what may have occurred between the two animals, said paleobiologist and study co-author Ryosuke Motani of the University of California, Davis.

The Guizhouichthyosaurus literally may have bitten off more than it could chew.

“The prey is lighter than the predator but its resistance must have been fierce,” Motani said. “The predator probably damaged its neck to some extent while subduing the prey. Then it took the head and tail of the prey off through jerking and twisting, and swallowed the trunk using inertia and gravity.”

Motani added, “These activities may have expanded the damage of the neck to the point it was fatal. The neck vertebral columns of these ichthyosaurs are quite narrow and once they could not hold the skull in place anymore, the predator could not breathe. Soon, it died not far from the site of the predation, where the detached tail of the prey lay.”

The fossil bore evidence of this broken neck. The prey in the stomach showed little signs of digestion, indicating the ichthyosaur died soon after swallowing it.

Its teeth look like they are good for grasping squids. So, it was a surprise to find such large prey

It is among the more dramatic fossils on record, joining others such as one showing the Cretaceous Period dinosaurs Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in combat and another of the large Cretaceous fish Xiphactinus that had swallowed whole another sizeable fish.

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2020-08-20 17:02:25Z
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