Car-Size 'Sea Monster' Terrorized Triassic Oceans
Source: LiveScience
Car-Size 'Sea Monster' Terrorized Triassic Oceans
By Laura Geggel, Associate Editor | May 11, 2019 08:37am ET
A crocodile-like beast the length of a Volkswagen Beetle terrorized prey in the late Triassic oceans about 210 million years ago, a new study finds.
Researchers excavated the remains of four of these now-extinct sea monsters from the rocky slopes of the Austrian Alps. But even at 13 feet long (4 meters), these creatures — known as phytosaurs — weren't fully grown.
The phytosaurs were only about 8 years old when they died, and they were "still actively growing," according to a bone analysis, said study lead researcher Richard Butler, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
Given the difficulty of bringing these fossils to light, it's remarkable that this new species — dubbed Mystriosuchus steinbergeri — is finally being introduced to science. Its species name honors Sepp Steinberger, a member of a local caving club, who discovered the fossils while climbing the "dead mountains," a remote area of the Austrian Alps, in 1980. A team from the Natural History Museum in Vienna excavated the remains two years later and had to use a helicopter to transport the fossils off the mountain, which was nearly 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) high.
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Read more: https://www.livescience.com/65460-ancient-crocodile-like-animal-discovered.html
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