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Prehistoric 'sea monster' was truly gigantic


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I've swam in oceans, seen some fish, but nothing like THAT.

Creeps me out.

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Palaeontology rocks! They find the tiniest fraction of a single vertebra and from that they extrapolate a new huge species of ichthyosaur. Anyone would think they're exaggerating just to make headlines...

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16 hours ago, Tom the Photon said:

Palaeontology rocks! They find the tiniest fraction of a single vertebra and from that they extrapolate a new huge species of ichthyosaur. Anyone would think they're exaggerating just to make headlines...

Or in this case where they found most of the jawbone of a recognisable species and worked out the size of animal that would have been needed to support that jaw.

I guess the question is what's more likely, that there were enough examples of animals of this size that one was able to be fossilised. Or that one overgrown/mutant example happened to be the one in several million example to be caught in that process.

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On 4/14/2018 at 11:50 AM, Tom the Photon said:

Palaeontology rocks! They find the tiniest fraction of a single vertebra and from that they extrapolate a new huge species of ichthyosaur. Anyone would think they're exaggerating just to make headlines...

It's not just a guess though. You can look at a bone and know that the other bones attached to it would need to be a similar size. It's not as though a tiny critter is going to have a jaw the size of the one in the article.

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23 minutes ago, Podo said:

It's not just a guess though. You can look at a bone and know that the other bones attached to it would need to be a similar size. It's not as though a tiny critter is going to have a jaw the size of the one in the article.

:lol:you never met my ex

jmccr8

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ichthyosaur_blue_whale_2018_sameerprehis

I never believed that the blue whale is the largest animal ever to live on this planet. When there are fossils of giant animals, i always thought there might be some animal which could rival or slightly surpass the blue whale in size. Some people use to say that there is a limit in certain animals size and then you know that is not the case as later you get to know the fossils of similar species being bigger. You can't just say that is science etc etc because nature creates massive animals which is out of your math.

Now coming back to the story. After reading that this new ichthyosaur was almost the size of a blue whale, the first thing came to my mind -- Is this ichthyosaur compared to the body proportions of shastasaurus sikanniensis or shonisaurus popularis ?

So the new fossil was compared to the jaw of Shonisaurus revealed that the new bone is 25 percent bigger. Now i am wondering is this Shonisaurus they are talking about is the 50 ft shonisaurus popularis or 70 ft shastasaurus sikanniensis ? While some people claim that the 21 m estimate for shastasaurussikanniensis is wrong and it was only 18 m or 17 m. In the publication they mention the name shonisaurus sikanniensis but the name "sikanniensis" belongs to shastasaurus. Wait a minute, once again they changed it back ??

Even though the 70 ft shastasaurus is the largest known ichthyosaur as well as the largest known marine reptile, it's body is long, somewhat slender and has a short skull while the 50 ft shonisaurus has a long skull and a somewhat shorter body. So if you increase shonisaurus to 85 ft as i did in the image, you get an animal which looks somewhat big compared to the blue whale. Maybe at this size 150 tonne is possible ?

While the length of 100 ft and 200 tonnes is not the normal size of a blue whale but people always use this large estimate in comparison to other animals, so in that case still the blue whale looks slightly bigger in the image but this is the closest challenge for now from any animal and that also possible only if this new ichthyosaur is based on shonisaurus body proportions. But if you use shastasaurus body proportions then don't think that this new ichthyosaur will be almost as big as blue whale. Then again the publication also talks about another large ichthyosaur that could be larger then the newly discovered individual. I hope after some days i don't see any news regarding both those ichthyosaurs size being reduced. I am sure no one would like to hear that.

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The word "icthyosaur" was coined by British palaeontolgist Sir Richard Owen in 1840, who went on to coin the word "dinosaur" in 1842.

In 1811, in Lyme Regis, along what is now called the Jurassic Coast of Dorset, the first complete ichthyosaur skull was found by Joseph Anning, the brother of Mary Anning, who in 1812 while still a young girl, secured the torso of the same specimen. Their mother, Molly Anning, sold the combined piece to squire Henry Henley for £23. Henley lent the fossil to the London Museum of Natural History of William Bullock. When this museum was closed, the British Museum bought the fossil for a price of £47.5s; it still belongs to the collection of the now independent Natural History Museum and has the inventory number BMNH R.1158. It has been identified as a specimen of Temnodontosaurus platyodon.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyosaur

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Sameerr said:

ichthyosaur_blue_whale_2018_sameerprehis

I never believed that the blue whale is the largest animal ever to live on this planet. 

It's merely the largest known animal.

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On 4/10/2018 at 6:46 AM, pallidin said:

I've swam in oceans, seen some fish, but nothing like THAT.

Creeps me out.

How I feel whenever I can't see the bottom.

Image result for giant sea monster

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On 4/22/2018 at 7:19 PM, Black Monk said:

It's merely the largest known animal.

Yes, it's just many people always say that the blue whale is the largest animal that ever lived and i have seen it several times. Largest known animal is correct but they always use the word 'ever'.  Search it and you will find many sites mention the blue whale as the largest animal ever.

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