A recent scientific discovery claims that giant sea lizards with “angry eyebrows” roamed the waters of what is now North Dakota more than 80 million years ago.
The new species has been named Jormungandr walhallaensis, a name derived from both a sea serpent from Norse mythology and the small Dakota town of Walhalla, near where the reptile’s fossil was found several years ago.
The newly discovered reptile is part of the mosasaur species, which were huge marine lizards that lived when dinosaurs walked the land, according to the study published last month in the Bulletin of American Museum of Natural History.
“If you put fins on a Komodo dragon and made it really big, that’s basically what it would look like,” said the study’s lead author, Amelia Zietlow, a doctoral student in comparative biology.
The study focuses on a fossil that was unearthed in 2015 during an excavation in northeastern North Dakota where a nearly complete skull, jaws and cervical spine were recovered, according to the American Museum of Natural History.
A painting showing Thor slaying the dragon. North Dakota State Museum and Heritage Center
The specimen is estimated to be about 24 feet long and has fins, a pair of “angry eyebrows” due to a bony crest on the skull, and a stumpy, shark-like tail.
It is estimated that he lived about 80 million years ago.
The new species includes features of two famous mosasaurs, the study states. A smaller, more primitive mosasaur called Clidastes and the much larger Mosasaurus, which could reach up to 50 feet long and lived at the same time as Tyrannosaurus rex.
The study focuses on a fossil that was unearthed in 2015 during an excavation in northeastern North Dakota where a nearly complete skull, jaws, and cervical spine were recovered, according to the American Museum of Natural History.Emil Doepler/Wikipedia
“As these animals evolved into these giant sea monsters, they constantly made changes,” said Zietlow, of the American Museum of Natural History’s Richard Gilder Graduate School.
“This work brings us one step closer to understanding how all of these different shapes relate to each other.”
The first mosasaur was discovered more than 200 years ago before this latest study.
“This fossil comes from a geological era in the United States that we don’t really understand,” said co-author Clint Boyd.
“The more we can complete the geographic and temporal timeline, the better we can understand these creatures,” added Boyd of the North Dakota Geological Survey.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn