Sentences with phrase «marine reptile»

Now, he and his colleagues have used those techniques to analyze the fossils of ancient marine reptiles.

This might give clues to what type of ancient predators, such as marine reptiles, they were facing.

Nowhere else in the world are so many marine reptiles found in one place.

Much like today's marine mammals, marine reptiles evolved from land - living ancestors and were air - breathing.

The flippered reptile C. lenticarpus, depicted in this artist's representation, lived about 248 million years ago and is likely an ancestor to a group of marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs.

Leatherback Turtles National Park - Impressive efforts have been made to protect Costa Rica's endangered giant leatherback turtle, or lute turtle as it is also known, the largest marine reptile in the world weighing up to 1500 lbs.

Drastic changes in the climate during the latter part of the Cretaceous Period led to the demise of an ancient marine reptile known as the ichthyosaur.

THE long - necked marine reptiles known as plesiosaurs are icons of the dinosaur age.

Knowledge of the mosasaurs goes back to the discovery of Mosasaurus, and their fossil record is more complete than for other marine reptiles.

These include the ammonite Diplomoceras, a distant relative of modern squid and octopus, with a paperclip - shaped shell that could grow as large as 2 metres, and giant marine reptiles such as Mosasaurus, as featured in the film Jurassic World.

Given that the rock that makes up Sucia Island was deposited around 80 million years ago, we thought it would be some sort of marine reptile from the age of dinosaurs.

Harpel's discovery made it possible for them to pinpoint the Mount Laurel Formation, which was deposited below a shallow sea, in which sharks and now - extinct marine reptiles called mosasaurs also swam, about 75 million years ago.

Other prehistoric marine reptiles were known to be exceptions to that rule, but until now fossil evidence that plesiosaurs did the same has been frustratingly elusive.

This artist s rendering reveals what an ancient marine reptile called a plesiosaur discovered in Antarctica may have looked like.

We recovered new fossils pertaining to all of these vertebrate groups — including significant new marine reptile and bird material — and collected an abundance of additional geological data.

Organisms of interest include fossil and living squamates (snakes and lizards) as well as of extinct marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.

While most Triassic marine reptiles lived in shallow seas, plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs were strong swimmers that lived in the open seas and gave birth to live young.

The extinctions that claimed the dolphinlike marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs (artist's conception above) have always been mysterious, and they just got more puzzling.

The 245 million - year - old marine reptile gave birth to its young instead of laying eggs, according to a study published Tuesday by Nature Communications.

The pigmentation patterns on those Cretaceous marine reptiles followed a pattern called countershading, in which the animal's back is dark and the belly is lighter.

Not only does this discovery solve the mystery of the strange - toothed animal, but it also provides us with an example of the first herbivorous marine reptile.

«All other Mesozoic marine reptiles had several small babies,» O'Keefe says.

These «snake - necked» marine reptiles gave rise to plesiosaurs late in the Triassic, the new find confirms.

«Unique feeding mechanism among marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs.»

The ancient marine reptiles once roamed Jurassic seas and commonly pop up in England's fossil - rich coast near Lyme Regis.

Since then, the shapes of melanosomes have been used to look at how marine reptiles are related and identify colors in dinosaurs and, now, mammals.

Ichthyosaurs, literally «fish lizards» in Greek, were large marine reptiles which lived alongside dinosaurs in the Mesozoic Era.

Giant marine reptiles met their end as did various types of invertebrates such as the iconic ammonites.

Dark upper surfaces, in particular, help modern - day marine reptiles such as leatherback turtles absorb sunlight while they bask at the surface.

For much of the time dinosaurs were lording over the land, sleek marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs were the masters of the sea.

«Hammerhead» creature was world's first plant - eating marine reptile: Scientists used clay models to discover how the croc - sized reptile's strange jaw worked.»

For a long time, scientists believed that the early marine reptiles that came about after the mass extinction evolved slowly, but the recent discovery of a strange new fossil brings that view into question.

Large marine reptiles disappeared during the mass extinction, as did the ammonites, an ancient cephalopod group similar to the chambered nautilus.

Perhaps they were using their long necks to sneak up under schools of fish silhouetted against the sky, suggests marine reptile expert Mike Everhart of the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas.

«The great marine reptiles were at the top of a long food chain that collapsed 65 million years ago.

Some lineages evolved into the biggest marine reptiles that ever lived.

It took nearly a century for marine reptile research to emerge from the shadow cast by the dinosaurs.

Step back 150 million years and Spitsbergen was covered by a cool, shallow sea swarming with marine reptiles.

Flippered creature was likely an ancestor of dinosaur - era marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs

As a plesiosaur palaeontologist, I was pleased to see marine reptiles featured in your editorial (31 October, p 5).

As they analyzed a pair of 66 - to 100 - million - year - old plesiosaur skeletons found near Hokkaido, Japan, the researchers realized the fossilized bones of the toothy, quad - flippered marine reptiles * were surrounded by fossilized shell fragments from provannids, a type of tiny snail.

The 150 - million - year - old bones turned out to be a nearly complete skeleton of a nine - foot - long carnivorous marine reptile.

His teams have also uncovered critical fossils indicating that the Antarctica maybe the center for the origin of modern bird groups and many examples of marine reptiles including a unique skeleton of a baby plesiosaur (2005).

It lived near the end of the dinosaur age, when Antarctica was a much warmer ecosystem, and fed on filter - feeding marine reptiles.

Not only do we have these amazing dinosaur sites, we also collect belemnites and shells, we've uncovered marine reptiles and we have our very own poop site.

After the end - Cretaceous mass extinction, shark and marine reptile diversity crashed, and formerly prolific sea mollusks known as ammonoids went extinct, said paleontologist Lauren Sallan at the University of Pennsylvania, who did not take part in this research.

Based on the common occurrence of the same genera and species of marine invertebrates in both regions [75 — 79], teleost fishes [80], herpetofauna [81], as well as marine reptiles [7, 54, 82] it has been suggested that the Caribbean or Hispanic Corridor connecting the eastern Pacific Ocean with the western Tethys through the Central Atlantic facilitated faunal dispersals between the two regions during the Late Jurassic [83 — 85].