Tag : Necked

Massachusetts: Compared to modern reptiles, several marine reptiles from the time of the dinosaurs had incredibly lengthy necks. The fact that they had long necks rendered them more vulnerable to predators, even if it was obviously a successful evolutionary strategy-- this has long been speculated by palaeontologists. Direct fossil evidence has been confirming this theory for the first time in the most dramatic manner possible after over 200 years of ongoing investigation. Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on June 19 studied the unusual necks of two Triassic species of Tanystropheus, a type of reptile distantly related to crocodiles, birds, and dinosaurs. The species had unique necks composed of 13 extremely elongated vertebrae and strut-like ribs. Consequently, these marine reptiles likely possessed stiffened necks and waited to ambush their prey. But Tanystropheus's predators apparently also took advantage of the long neck for their own gain. Careful examination of their fossilized bones now shows that the necks of two existing specimens representing different species with severed necks have clear bite marks on them, in one case right where the neck was broken. The findings offer gruesome and exceedingly rare evidence for predator-prey interactions in the fossil record going back over 240 million years ago, the researchers say. "Paleontologists speculated that these long necks formed an obvious weak spot for predation, as was already vividly depicted almost 200 years ago in a famous painting by Henry de la Beche from 1830," said Stephan Spiekman of the Staatliches Museum fur Naturkunde Stuttgart, Germany. "Nevertheless, there was no evidence of decapitation--or any other sort of attack targeting the neck--known fro ...