Monday, March 3, 2008

Monster T-rex of the SEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


During the summer of 2006 a team of Norwegian paleontologists discovered a 150 million year old fossil of a pliosaur, large reptiles with tear-shaped bodies and short necks, a body plan that let the ancient animals glide easily through the oceans during the Jurassic Period (from 206 million to 144 million years ago. They had found the bones on a remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Now the fossil represents a new pliosaur and it is the largest of its kind. The team discovered 40 fossils at the site. Many marine reptiles were there. The leader stated that is was rare to find a graveyard of giants preserved for millions of years. This monster was a length of 50ft. and powerful paddles extending 10ft. This creature represents the many giants that inhabited the seas at the time. In addition, the marine animal showed bone crushing teeth the size of cucumbers that rival the T. rex’s. These bones can help an animal very much to take out the meat and bones of the prey. There is no current evidence that the new pliosaur of being attacked or attacking the other marine live at that time. But they know that they were chewing on each other because they found the same animals tooth in another animal in the same area. Wow! I think that is really cool to dig the bones up. This just tells us that there were many different kinds of monsters out there. It is amazing that these scientists were able to figure what it was and what time period it lived in with just bones. The site I went to was http://www.livescience.com/animals/080228-monster-pliosaur.html

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