#pliosaur

[blueiskewl]

Gigantic Skull of Prehistoric Sea Monster Found on England’s ‘Jurassic Coast’

The remarkably well-preserved skull of a gigantic pliosaur, a prehistoric sea monster, has been discovered on a beach in the county of Dorset in southern England, and it could reveal secrets about these awe-inspiring creatures.

Pliosaurs dominated the oceans at a time when dinosaurs roamed the land. The unearthed fossil is about 150 million years old, almost 3 million years younger than any other pliosaur find. Researchers are analyzing the specimen to determine whether it could even be a species new to science.

Originally spotted in spring 2022, the fossil, along with its complicated excavation and ongoing scientific investigation, are now detailed in the upcoming BBC documentary “Attenborough and the Jurassic Sea Monster,” presented by legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough, that will air February 14 on PBS.

Such was the enormous size of the carnivorous marine reptile that the skull, excavated from a cliff along Dorset’s “Jurassic Coast,” is almost 2 meters (6.6 feet) long. In its fossilized form, the specimen weighs over half a metric ton. Pliosaurs species could grow to 15 meters (50 feet) in length, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The fossil was buried deep in the cliff, about 11 meters (36 feet) above the ground and 15 meters (49 feet) down the cliff, local paleontologist Steve Etches, who helped uncover it, said in a video call.

Extracting it proved a perilous task, one fraught with danger as a crew raced against the clock during a window of good weather before summer storms closed in and the cliff eroded, possibly taking the rare and significant fossil with it.

Etches first learned of the fossil’s existence when his friend Philip Jacobs called him after coming across the pliosaur’s snout on the beach. Right from the start, they were “quite excited, because its jaws closed together which indicates (the fossil) is complete,” Etches said.

After using drones to map the cliff and identify the rest of the pliosaur’s precise position, Etches and his team embarked on a three-week operation, chiseling into the cliff while suspended in midair.

“It’s a miracle we got it out,” he said, “because we had one last day to get this thing out, which we did at 9:30 p.m.”

Etches took on the task of painstakingly restoring the skull. There was a time he found “very disillusioning” as the mud, and bone, had cracked, but “over the following days and weeks, it was a case of …, like a jigsaw, putting it all back. It took a long time but every bit of bone we got back in.”

It’s a “freak of nature” that this fossil remains in such good condition, Etches added. “It died in the right environment, there was a lot of sedimentation … so when it died and went down to the seafloor, it got buried quite quickly.”

Fearsome top predator of the seas

The nearly intact fossil illuminates the characteristics that made the pliosaur a truly fearsome predator, hunting prey such as the dolphinlike ichthyosaur. The apex predator with huge razor-sharp teeth used a variety of senses, including sensory pits still visible on its skull that may have allowed it to detect changes in water pressure, according to the documentary.

The pliosaur had a bite twice as powerful as a saltwater crocodile, which has the world’s most powerful jaws today, according to Emily Rayfield, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who appeared in the documentary. The prehistoric marine predator would have been able to cut into a car, she said.

Andre Rowe, a postdoctoral research associate of paleobiology at the University of Bristol, added that “the animal would have been so massive that I think it would have been able to prey effectively on anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its space.”

By Issy Ronald.

#Gigantic Skull of Prehistoric Sea Monster Found on England’s ‘Jurassic Coast’ #Dorset England #pliosaur #jurassic #fossil #prehistoric #dinosaur #paleobiology #palaeontologists #archaeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #Sir David Attenborough #nature #naturalist

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Results from the #paleostream

Luskhan, Analong and Cladocynodon

#paleoart #sciart #dinosaur #sauropod #mamenchisaur #analong #fish #jurassic #cretaceous #pterosaur #pliosaur #plesiosaur #luskhan #palaeoblr #paleostream

[odinsblog]

Fish heads

#pliosaur #archeology #dinosaurs #fish heads #rolly polly fish heads #marine biology #paleontology #sea monsters #sharks #prehistoric sharks #fish lizard #giant fish lizard

[theworldismyoysterandiamthepearl]

Pliosaur discovery: Huge sea monster emerges from Dorset cliffs.

from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67650247

#dinosaur #jurassic #pliosaur #fossil

[proflambeovt]

Quick Liopleurodon for #FossilFriday !

#liopleurodon #pliosaur #jurassic period #walking with dinosaurs #seareptile #paleoart #paleoillustration #plesiosaur #illustration #art #artwork #drawing #animal art #procreate #artist on tumblr

[thysanniia]

A lil dude I painted at the TetZooCon 'Paint a Pliosaur ' event! I'm surprisingly happy with the final result :3

#tetzoocon #paleoart #pliosaur #plesiosaur #my art #my posts

[impulseimpact]

mauroar

mauroar is based on two different fossils found in mexico, first is mauriciosaurus, a very complete plesiosaur named mauriciosaurus, it was indeed a juvenile so its hard to know what its adult size would be but there are estimates

the other one is an indeterminate pliosaur known from remains so fragmentary it cant be asigned to a genus, its known as the aramberri monster and it became popular because a size estimate of 15 meters was made based on liopleurodon which would make it insanely big, but its also not very realistic

very interesting opposites for marine reptiles found in mexico

#my art #oc #oc art #creature design #mesoma region #faketober #fakemon #fakemon art #pliosaur #plesiosaur #marine reptile

[fangtalksdragons]

NEW Pliosaur Lorrainosaurus

The rise of macropredatory pliosaurids near the Early-Middle Jurassic transition https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43015-y [new genus Lorrainosaurus]

Also video by Joschua Knüppe on it https://youtu.be/5Pk4fAwRvSE?si=_3ztN7GIHq_tQl_S

#paleontology #pliosaur #paleoart #sea monster #ammonite

[makairodonx]

Breaking News-Last year the 2-meter-long skull of a huge 10 or 12-meter-long pliosaur that lived about 150 million years ago (the creature hasn’t been formally described yet) and had a bite-force of approximately 33,000 newtons was painstakingly unearthed from the face of a cliff in the fossil-rich Jurassic Coast of Dorset, England, and it has now become the subject of a recent David Attenborough documentary that was released just a few days ago. But sad thing is, the original amateur discoverer of the fossil Philip Jacob has not been given credit for this single fascinating find, and now there’s a petition to name the Pliosaur after him.

Let justice be done to Philip Jacobs!

Here is what the living animal would look like when it is compared in size with a human time-traveler.

#pliosaur #paleoart #paleontology #jurassic period #david attenborough #bbc #philip jacobs

[mugene-art]

#isopods #kronosaurus #pliosaur #horseshoe crab #trilobite #eurypterid #triops #biology #fossils #sketchbook #art #mu's art

[six-legged-sea-leopard]

liopleurodons freehanded from memory, so forgive any anatomical inaccuracies. i just like their big needle teeth👍

#paleoart #pliosaur #liopleurodon

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

FINALLY IT'S OUT! Please welcome Lorrainosaurus keileni, a new pliosaur from France and a replacement for Simolestes keileni.

Besides the press release artwork I also did the skeletal drawing for this one. Based on the phylogeny I mixed here Simolestes characters with animals like Kronosaurus, to reflect it's new position.

My personal story with this specimen starts in 2016, when me and Sven Sachs spontaneously visited the Natural History Museum in Luxembourg. The biggest preserved piece of the lower jaw was already on display back then but with the fragments in the collection we were able to piece it together to be nearly complete. What was a box of scraps turned into the 1,4 m tool of a monster. I was very happy to be able to bring this project to a close by contributing the artwork that would accompany the paper eventually.

I wanted to show the animal with open mouth, to show the impressive teeth and jaw shape, but without the animal attacking something, so a cleaning scenario came to mind.

Oh, btw. here the paper, it's open access

#sciart #paleoart #jurassic #marine reptile #pliosaur #lorrainosaurus #simolestes #plesiosaur #cleaning fish #luxembourg

[artvianblog]

Kronosaurus q.

Never knew this lad was from aus. That's cool

#kronosaurus #kronosaurus queenslandicus #pliosaur #paleoart #f water effects

[kinosworld]

New chompy water puppy found!

And it's a big boy!

#paleontology #uk news #pliosaur

[primal-creations]

I don't think I showed this off but I made a Diorama for a close friend!!

#jurassic park #paleoart #paleoartist #paleontology #tinysaurs #my art #prehistoric #dinosuar #art #marine reptile #Ophthalmosaurus #pliosaur #elasmosaurus #diorama

[saritawolff]

Patreon request for rome.and.stuff (Instagram), and my first plesiosaur (well, first since I was like… 10)

Pliosaurus funkei!

Pliosaurs were a family of plesiosaurs that eventually lost their stereotypical long-necked, small-headed body plan. Resembling the mosasaurs that would come much later, pliosaurs had short necks with large, strong jaws, and fed on fish, cephalopods, and marine reptiles. The type genus, Pliosaurus, contains at least 6 species. The first and type species, P. brachydeirus, was described and named by Sir Richard Owen in 1841.

Between 2004 and 2012, a new species of Pliosaurus was in the process of being uncovered. Before it was formally described or even named, news of this giant sea monster escaped into the general media and it was dubbed “Predator X”.

This Predator X prompted a media frenzy… there were articles estimating its size based on the fragments found so far, a 2009 television special on the History channel, and a segment in the 2011 BBC documentary series “Planet Dinosaur.”

Predator X was reportedly the “most fearsome animal ever to swim in the oceans!”

When Pliosaurus funkei was finally formally described and named in 2012, it was found to be a bit smaller than the giant 15 meter long estimate being thrown around. However, it was still a very large animal, around 10–12 m (33–39 ft) long with a 2.0–2.5 m (6.6–8.2 ft) long skull. It also had very long flippers, probably to aid in maneuverability and speed. Analysis of Pliosaurus funkei’s skeleton show that it likely used its front flippers to cruise, only using its back flippers for quick bursts of speed when pursuing prey. Analysis of its brain case shows that its brain was proportional to that of a modern great white shark. So while it didn’t quite beat the Late Cretaceous 12–15.8 meter (39–52 ft) long mosasaur Tylosaurus, the Early Miocene to Late Pliocene 10.5-20.3 meter (34-67 ft) long shark Otodus megalodon, or even the modern day 11-16 meter (36-52 ft) long Physeter macrocephalus (Sperm Whale), it was still no doubt the apex predator of its time and environment.

Pliosaurus funkei lived in the last era of the Late Jurassic in the icy waters of Norway. Found in the Slottsmøya Member of the Agardhfjellet Formation, it would have lived in a cold, shallow sea rife with methane seeps. These methane seeps supported a high amount of diversity, and the Slottsmøya was teeming with ammonites, bivalves, gastropods, brachiopods, tubeworms, echinoderms, cold water sponges, and more. Many icthyosaurs and plesiosaurs would have enjoyed feeding on the plentiful invertebrates here, as well as each other. Pliosaurus funkei would have likely fed on other plesiosaurs like Colymbosaurus, Djupedalia, Ophthalmothule, and Spitrasaurus, as well as icthyosaurs like Cryopterygius, Undorosaurus, Arthropterygius, Nannopterygius, and Brachypterygius.

#my art #SaritaDrawsPalaeo #Pliosaurus funkei #Pliosaurus #pliosaur #predator x #plesiosaurs #sauropterygians #reptiles