•  bermuda   ( @bermuda@beehaw.org ) 
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    67 months ago

    It belonged to a pliosaur, an extinct marine reptile that terrorized the oceans from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous periods, approximately 150 million years ago.

    Considering the pliosaur was alive from ~200 Ma to 66 Ma, 150 Ma is one hell of an approximation lol

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    The skull of an ancient sea creature that was the “apex predator in the ocean” was discovered on southern England’s famous World Heritage Jurassic Coast, the BBC News reports.

    It belonged to a pliosaur, an extinct marine reptile that terrorized the oceans from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous periods, approximately 150 million years ago.

    Each tooth has fine ridges at the back to pierce its prey’s flesh, quickly extract, and prepare itself for a swift second attack.

    “The animal would have been so massive that I think it would have been able to prey effectively on anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its space,” Andre Rowe, a palaeobiologist from Bristol University, told BBC News.

    The groundbreaking discovery was made when fossil enthusiast Phil Jacobs was walking along a beach on the coast of southern England.

    The newly uncovered fossil will feature in a special David Attenborough program on BBC One on New Year’s Day.


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