There is a treasure chest in Berlin. There is a collection of bones just down the road from the abandoned gold and silver mines. The Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park has a lot of fossils. Researchers have been scratching their heads over the bone bed for a long time.
Nick Pyenson is the curator of fossil marine mammals at the National Museum of Natural History. This place, Berlin-Ichthyosaur in eastern Nevada, has not been explained for a long time. In one quarry, at least seven individuals from the Shonisaurus, a bloated, bus-sized dolphin with four limb-like flippers, lay on top of each other.
The cluster of fossils were the focus of previous hypotheses. It was suggested that the animals got stranded in shallow water and died. Maybe a volcano did them in. 3D visualization of the site, as well as fossils and other clues in the geological record, were used to test Pyenson's hunch.
In the journal Current Biology, Pyenson and his team present evidence that the shonisaur came there to reproduce. Some whales migrate long distances to give birth, according to the team's conclusion. The oldest example of migration in groups to a designated calving ground can be found in the discovery.
Lene Liebe Delsett, who was not involved in the study, said that they were making a convincing case. Ichthyosaurs were the first of their kind. There was a lot of variation throughout the Triassic. It's a very interesting period of time to learn more about.
There is a lot of death in the beginning of the story.
About 95 percent of all marine species were wiped out by the biggest extinction event in the history of the planet. The animals that grew back in their places turned out to be weirder and larger than before.
An arms race began after the Triassic. Prey evolved harder shells and were better at hunting fish. The pressure was partly driven by Ichthyosaurs, which were the first to evolve into new species. Some of the largest marine predators are found in the Shonisaurus genera. They achieved whale sizes before anyone else.
He specializes in mammals, which were part of the reptile family about 325 million years ago. There are many similarities between ancient marine reptiles and current marine mammals. They have the same flippers as their ancestors, they were born young, and they are four-legged. This type of mystery is something Pyenson knows a lot about. A decade ago, he and his South American colleagues used 3D mapping and chemical analyses to show that a group of at least 40 whales died from a toxic algal bloom.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
