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| Nothosaur |
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| A predatory reptile ahead of its time, happiest in the water but
also able to haul out onto dry land.
Type: Marine reptile
Size: Up to 4m long
Diet: Carnivore
Predators: Dinosaurs
Lived: Triassic, 240-210 million years ago.
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Length: up to
4m long |
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| Nothosaurs were long-necked,
long-tailed, fish-eating reptiles ranging from a few inches to 20 feet
(6 m) long - they were not dinosaurs. Nothosaurs had four wide,
paddle-like limbs with webbed fingers and toes. These reptiles had a
long, thin head with many sharp teeth; the front teeth were longer than
the back teeth. The nostrils were on the top end of the snout. They
breathed air but spent most of the time in the water. |
| A little bit like a crocodile, Nothosaurs had a long flat tail and
short stumpy legs. Plus it had a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. Speed
and agility helped it ambush fish as well as cephalopods and small
reptiles. Although the water was its natural habitat, it came ashore
to sunbathe. And like turtles nowadays, female Nothosaurs hauled
themselves well above the high water mark to bury their clutch of eggs.
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| Nothosaurs (order Nothosauria) were Triassic marine
sauropterygian reptiles that may have lived like seals of today,
catching food in water but coming ashore on rocks and beaches. They
averaged about three meters in length, with a long body and tail. The
feet had become paddle-like, and were most certainly webbed in life, to
help power the animal when swimming. The neck was quite long, and the
head was elongate and flattened, and relatively small in relation to the
body. The margins of the long jaws were equipped with numerous sharp
outward-pointing teeth, indicating a diet of fish. The nothosaurs
consist of two suborders--the Pachypleurosaurs, tiny, primitive forms,
and the true Nothosaurs, which evolved from pachypleurosaurs.
Nothosaur-like reptiles were in turn ancestral to the more completely
marine plesiosaurs, which replaced them at the end of the Triassic
period.
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