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| Liopleurodon |
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| Liopleurodon attacking Cryptoclidus |
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| This giant predator would dwarf a living sperm whale
Type: Marine reptile
Size: 25m long
Diet: Omnivore
Predators: Probably none
Lived: Mid to Late Jurassic, 160-155 million years
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plesiosaurios |
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| Liopleurodon was the mightiest
aquatic predator of all time. Its 25 meter long body would have
cruised silently through the shallow seas of the late Jurassic,
propelled by its flapping flippers. Liopleurodon was a hunter. Its
long jaws and rows of needle-sharp teeth would have made marine
crocodiles, the giant fish Leedsichthys, ichthyosaurs and even other
pliosaurs vulnerable to attack.
Liopleurodon's nose allowed it to smell underwater. This allowed
Liopleurodon to smell its prey from some distance away. Despite
needing to breath air, Liopleurodon spent its entire life at sea and
was unable to leave the water. Consequently, it would have given
birth to its young alive and may have visited shallower water to
breed.
Until recently the longest confirmed adult specimen was 18
metres. But in 2003 a fossil pliosaur (possibly a Liopleurodon) was
discovered in Mexico which was 18 metres long and still a juvenile -
suggesting that they grew considerably larger than this.
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Liopleurodon is a genus of Pliosaurs, large, carnivorous marine
reptiles which lived during the mid to late
Jurassic period (c. 160 million to 155 million years ago). The
largest and best-known species is undoubtedly Liopleurodon ferox, first
identified by H.E Sauvage in 1873.
Four strong paddle-like limbs suggest that Liopleurodon was a
powerful swimmer. Its 4-flipper motion has reportedly died with the
extinction of the liopleurodon. Studies of the skull have showed that it
could scan the water with its nostrils to ascertain where certain smells
came from. Liopleurodon was omnivorous and it is unlikely it had many,
if any, predators.
Fossils of the creature have been found mainly in Germany and the
United Kingdom from the Jurassic period, when
Europe
was covered by a large sea. The issue of its maximum size has been
somewhat controversial. Most fossil evidence of Liopleurodon ferox seems
to indicate that these beasts grew from 7 to 10 metres long; however, as
with its relative Kronosaurus, there is some uncertainty whether current
reconstructions are correct. Fossil evidence from Great Britain
indicates much larger contemporary pliosaurs, up to 15 metres or even
longer, but the evidence is too fragmentary to determine whether it
belonged to Liopleurodon or to a species from some other genus.
In 2002 the discovery of a very large pliosaur in Mexico was
announced. This came to be known as the 'Monster of Aramberri'.
Conservative estimates gave a length of at least 15 metres, despite the
possibility of its being a juvenile specimen. However, although widely
reported as such, it did not belong to the Liopleurodon genus. Estimates
of maximum size (most likely exaggerated) had already been circulated in
the 1999
documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs where an enormous pliosaur was
presented as a 25-meter-long Liopleurodon. However, most paleontologists
believe that Liopleurodon (or any other pliosaur) could not have grown
that large.
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LONDON (ANI) -- Bones
measuring 65 feet from nose to tail, teeth packed into 10 ft jaws
powerful enough to bite through granite and a total physical weight of
50 tons - these are the characteristics of Liopleurodon ferox, a
fearsome carnivore that terrorised the seas 150 million years ago.
The complete skeleton of the largest predator of all
times have been found by German and Mexican palaeontologists although
its existence was known in 19th century through partial fossils,
according to a report in Times Online. The details of the October
discovery have been published in the German magazine Der Spiegel. The
marine behemoth was also featured in the BBC series Walking With
Dinosaurs.
Far larger than Tyrannosaurus rex, the skeleton of
this "Monster of Aramberri," nicknamed after the place in Mexico where
it was located, is likely to throw light on the beast's last meal and
the cause of its death. It used to hunt the ancestors of the modern
shark and aquatic reptiles such as ichthyosaurs.
The skull, as large as a car, was found to have a
huge hole in it, possibly made by a victim that fought back. The bones
were discovered mingled with those of smaller ichthyosaurs, which the
Liopleurodon had probably eaten, together with huge chunks of rock which
it would have swallowed along with its prey as an aid to digestion or as
ballast.
Leader of the research team Eberhard Frey, of the
Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe, where the bones are to be shipped
for reconstruction, said the spcimen would help them to build the most
accurate model yet of the creature. "A sensational find," says he,
adding that "no other living creature in the sea could fight it
successfully. They swallowed the prey whole."
Liopleurodon ferox, first identified by the French
palaeontologist H.E. Sauvage in 1873, belongs to an order of prehistoric
marine reptiles known as the plesiosaurs, cousins of the dinosaurs that
thrived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, between 208 and 65
million years ago.
The creatures, whose collective name means "near
lizards", were carnivores with four powerful flippers. Liopleurodon,
which means "smooth-sided tooth", is one of a sub-group called the
pliosauroids, which had large heads, strong jaws, short necks, and
resembled whales.
Estimates prepared by the BBC series suggest that
the largest of the creatures would have been even bigger than the
"Monster of Aramberri," at up to 80 feet long and 150 tons, although
most palaeontologists are more conservative, particularly about its
weight.
Liopleurodon's teeth measured up to 10in each and
were so sharp that several members of Frey's team suffered cuts while it
was painstakingly dug from the soil. (ANI)
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