{"id":31614,"date":"2023-06-28T08:44:56","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T08:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite"},"modified":"2023-06-28T08:55:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T08:55:04","slug":"always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite","title":{"rendered":"Always a Bigger Fish: Paleontologists Find Long-Necked Marine Predator Decapitated by Single Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. <\/strong><\/span>A group of paleontologists have analyzed a fossil find from a site in the Alps and discovered the creature was decapitated by a bite from a massive predator.<\/p>\n

However, the skeleton already belongs to one of the biggest hunters known to paleontologists. In the ancient Earth seas of 240 million years ago, Tanystropheus hydroides was a terror of the deep.<\/p>\n

At 20 feet long and with a neck three times the length of its body, Tanystropheus could ambush its prey of fish and squid long before they knew such a large creature was nearby.<\/p>\n

However, one unfortunate Tanystropheus found at the Monte San Giorgio fossil site on the Swiss-Italian border learned in its final moments an important maxim: there\u2019s always a bigger fish. According to a group of paleontologists in Germany and Switzerland, the creature\u2019s neck was severed by a single massive bite from another predator.<\/p>\n

Stephan Spiekman, a vertebrate paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, in Germany, said he initially thought he was studying two different specimens of long-necked marine creatures of a much smaller variety than Tanystropheus hydroides until he realized the horrible truth: telltale bite marks on the vertebrae showed they had once been part of a single creature\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very plausible that a large predator bit [off] the neck in one go, especially considering the large predators that were around in that environment,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Their study further analyzed the attack and determined the Tanystropheus was ambushed from above by a creature that likely targeted the neck in order to kill the creature quickly.<\/p>\n

Since no trace of the creature\u2019s body apart from the neck was found, the predators likely feasted on it as the neck fell away. However, a mystery still remained: who killed Tanystropheus?<\/p>\n

By looking at the size of the toothmarks and comparing it to a list of the creatures found at the fossil site, the paleontologists narrowed it down to a \u201cfinal list of suspects,\u201d Spiekman said.<\/p>\n

They came up with three names: Cymbospondylus buchseri, an 18-foot-long ichthyosaur that resembled a giant dolphin Nothosaurus giganteus, a huge reptile with an elongated neck \u2013 albeit nothing like Tanystropheus \u2013 that could reach 23 feet in length<\/p>\n

Helveticosaurus zollingeri, a creature about which paleontologists have incomplete information, but which seems to have been about 12 feet long that may have resembled a marine iguana but with a bigger, toothier snout<\/p>\n

Other mysteries will have to remain unsolved, such as how such big, deep-water creatures were able to encounter Tanystropheus, which typically hunted in shallow lagoons. The findings were published on Monday in the journal Current Biology.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mauritius<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. A group of paleontologists have analyzed a fossil find from a site in the Alps and discovered the creature was decapitated by a bite from a massive predator. However, the skeleton already belongs to one of the biggest hunters known to paleontologists. In the ancient Earth seas of 240 million years ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":31613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[233,245,2100,241],"class_list":["post-31614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mauritius","tag-biology","tag-mauritius"],"yoast_head":"\nAlways a Bigger Fish: Paleontologists Find Long-Necked Marine Predator Decapitated by Single Bite - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A group of paleontologists have analyzed a fossil find from a site in the Alps and discovered the creature was decapitat ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Always a Bigger Fish: Paleontologists Find Long-Necked Marine Predator Decapitated by Single Bite\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A group of paleontologists have analyzed a fossil find from a site in the Alps and discovered the creature was decapitat ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mauritius\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-06-28T08:44:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-28T08:55:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2023\/06\/sm_1687926198.676909.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Always a Bigger Fish: Paleontologists Find Long-Necked Marine Predator Decapitated by Single Bite\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-06-28T08:44:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-28T08:55:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite\"},\"wordCount\":460,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2023\/06\/sm_1687926198.676909.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Mauritius\",\"Biology\",\"Mauritius\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"miscellaneous\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/always-a-bigger-fish-paleontologists-find-long-necked-marine-predator-decapitated-by-single-bite\",\"name\":\"Always a Bigger Fish: Paleontologists Find Long-Necked Marine Predator Decapitated by Single Bite - 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