Paleontologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Canadian Museum of Nature analyzed two skeletons from thin
Analysis of two well-preserved skeletons showeda reptile with a wide pachiostotic body, that is, with denser bones, and a very short, flattened tail. The short, flattened tail helps the lizard balance, acting as an underwater float, conserving the predator's energy while searching for prey.
Scientists have named the new species Brevicaudosaurusjiyangshanensis, from Latin brevi - "short", "caudo" - "tail" and Greek sauros - "lizard". The most complete skeleton of the two was found in the Jiangshan Quarry, giving this specimen its species name.
Contributed by: QING-HUA SHANG, HIAO-CHUNG WU and CHUN,Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The skeleton makes it clear how this ancient lizard lived.Its forelimbs are more developed than its hind limbs - most likely, they helped the reptile swim. However, the bones on the front legs are shorter when comparing the lizard with other species. It is worth noting that this significantly limits the force with which individuals can move through the water. Most of its bones, including its vertebrae and ribs, are thick and dense. All this gives a portrait of a stocky and plump reptile. This structure limited its ability to swim quickly, but increased stability under water.
In general, such a find seems surprising.As for nothosaurs, they were always distinguished by their slender body, long neck and tail, and long limbs. Although the animal was aquatic, its limbs were less adapted for swimming than those of more advanced sauropterygians such as pistosaurs, pliosaurs and plesiosaurs.
Notosaurus skies were closed, airwayswere separated from the foodways. This feature of the body structure helped when feeding in the water. The skull was long and flat with large holes. There were numerous pointed teeth along the edges of the jaws. The Notosaurus moved through the water, rotating its body in waves and using its limbs to swim. Like other sauropterygs, Notosaurus descended from terrestrial reptiles distantly related to lizards and snakes.
Natasaurs are typically found as fossils from the Triassic period (251 to 200 million years ago) in Southwest and East Asia, North Africa, and especially Europe.
This era ended with a mass extinctionmarked a huge shift in the diversity and dominance of life on Earth, giving rise to many well-known animal groups that ruled the planet for tens of millions of years.
As it recently became known, "The Great Extinction"the largest extinction the planet has ever seen occurred about 250 million years ago and was largely caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Scientists are now beginning to notice disturbing similarities between the Great Extinction and what is now happening to our atmosphere.
Scientists highlight this similarity in a new exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
The pearl of the Deep Time exhibition is the firsta real tyrannosaurus rex. Its skeleton rests over the bones of a recumbent Triceratops, one clawed paw is holding the unfortunate herbivore, jaws pressed to its head, ready to bite off a piece the size of a manhole cover.
"We like to say, 'Come for the dinosaurs, stay for everything else.'
Scott Wing, one of the exhibition curators
The theme of the exhibition is the interconnection of life throughgeological time. The exhibit shows, for example, how plants at the bottom of the food chain support everything from insects to the 20-ton apatosaurs, and how insects have helped shape forests that have evolved and changed over millions of years.
There were other mass extinctions such aswhich destroyed the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. This happened at the end of the Permian period and was mainly caused by the excessive emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And the Smithsonian Institution often notes in its exhibitions that the current warming on the planet resembles the sad experience of the Earth in the past.
“We can learn from studying the past,” concludes the exhibition curator.
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