Fossils show ancient long-necked sea beast's 'gruesome' decapitation
The Hindu
The researchers studied the neck and head remains of Tanystropheus, detecting bite marks and other signs of trauma indicating decapitation
In shallow waters about 242 million years ago, a strange marine reptile built unlike any other animal ever on Earth hunted for fish and squid, using an inordinately elongated neck to ambush prey. Suddenly and violently, its life ended - decapitated by a powerful predator.
Scientists for two centuries have suspected that prehistoric marine reptiles like this one, named Tanystropheus, possessing very long necks were highly vulnerable to such attacks. A fresh examination of Tanystropheus fossils unearthed in Switzerland decades ago on a mountain called Monte San Giorgio has provided the first unambiguous evidence to demonstrate it.
The researchers studied neck and head remains of two species of Tanystropheus, detecting bite marks and other signs of trauma indicating decapitation. The larger species, the one that ate fish and squid, reached 20 feet (6 meters) long, though this individual was about 13 feet (4 meters). The smaller species was about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, with teeth indicating a diet of soft-shelled invertebrates like shrimp.
The neck of Tanystropheus was three times longer than its torso. Useful in hunting, extreme neck elongation was common among marine reptiles spanning about 175 million years during the age of dinosaurs. But this came with a price: an obvious weak spot for predation.
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There was evidence of predation in the fossils of both species. One has two tooth-shaped punctures and a tooth scratch. The other has a pit caused by a tooth hitting the bone. Both bear bone injuries where the neck was severed.
"These very dramatic examples of predator-prey interaction are extremely rare in fossils, and they give us an insight into how these animals lived together. It reminds us that these creatures went through dramatic events similar to what we see in nature today - in this case in a particularly vivid and gruesome way," said palaeontologist Stephan Spiekman of the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany, lead author of the research published this week in the journal Current Biology.
