Scientists describe weird ancient hammerhead reptile

[spaminator]

Scientists describe weird ancient hammerhead reptile
Will Dunham, Reuters
First posted: Friday, May 06, 2016 03:41 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, May 06, 2016 03:46 PM EDT
WASHINGTON - It was a creature so outlandish that scientists say it reminds them of the fanciful beasts conjured up by Dr. Seuss. But would the famous children's book author have thought up a marine reptile with a hammerhead snout it used to snack on algae?
Scientists on Friday announced the discovery in southern China of new fossils of a reptile from 242 million years ago called Atopodentatus that clarify the nature of this strange crocodile-sized, plant-eating sea-dweller.
When the first fossils of Atopodentatus were found in 2014, scientists thought, based on its poorly preserved skull, it had a down-turned snout resembling a flamingo's beak with a vertical, zipper-like mouth. But two new fossil specimens, described in research published in the journal Science Advances, resolved the matter.
"On a scale of weirdness, I think this is up there with the best. It kind of reminds me of some of the Dr. Seuss creations," National Museums Scotland paleontologist Nicholas Fraser said.
Atopodentatus is the earliest-known herbivorous marine reptile, said paleontologist Olivier Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago.
Atopodentatus apparently used chisel-like teeth along the edge of its blunt, hammer-shaped snout to scrape algae off hard underwater surfaces. It then quickly opened its mouth to create suction before closing its jaws to filter the plant material through densely packed and needle-shaped teeth much like baleen whales strain tiny shrimp-like krill from seawater.
Atopodentatus, about 9 feet (2.75 meters) long, lived in a shallow sea in China's Yunnan province alongside fish and other marine reptiles, said paleontologist Chun Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
When thinking of hammerhead creatures, sharks may come to mind. But Atopodentatus' hammerhead feature differed in location and function from the sharks, whose eyes are on the end of lateral extensions on their head.
Atopodentatus appeared during the Triassic Period relatively soon after the biggest mass extinction of species in Earth's history, illustrating that life was bouncing back nicely. Other oddball creatures also swam the seas at the time, including a reptile called Dinocephalosaurus whose neck comprised half of its 17-foot (5.25 meters) length.
"If you saw this reptile (Atopodentatus) in isolation cruising around with some of the fishes of the day, I think you would say it was really quite absurd," Fraser said. "But alongside some of its fellow denizens of the deep, I think it would just appear as one more oddity in a mesmerizing world."
Life restoration of Atopodentatus (the "hammerhead") is shown in this image released May 6, 2016. Scientists on Friday announced the discovery in southern China of new fossils of a reptile from 242 million years ago called Atopodentatus that clarify the nature of this strange crocodile-sized, plant-eating sea-dweller. Courtesy Y. Chen/IVPP/Handout via REUTERS
A fossil of Atopodentatus unicus is seen alongside a reconstruction showing what it would have looked like in life is shown in this image released May 6, 2016. Scientists on Friday announced the discovery in southern China of new fossils of a reptile from 242 million years ago called Atopodentatus that clarify the nature of this strange crocodile-sized, plant-eating sea-dweller. Courtesy Nick Fraser/National Museums Scotland/Handout via REUTERS

Scientists describe weird ancient hammerhead reptile | World | News | Toronto Su

 

[55Mercury]

Scientists describe weird ancient hammerhead reptile
Will Dunham, Reuters
First posted: Friday, May 06, 2016 03:41 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, May 06, 2016 03:46 PM EDT
WASHINGTON - It was a creature so outlandish that scientists say it reminds them of the fanciful beasts conjured up by Dr. Seuss. But would the famous children's book author have thought up a marine reptile with a hammerhead snout it used to snack on algae?
Scientists on Friday announced the discovery in southern China of new fossils of a reptile from 242 million years ago called Atopodentatus that clarify the nature of this strange crocodile-sized, plant-eating sea-dweller.
When the first fossils of Atopodentatus were found in 2014, scientists thought, based on its poorly preserved skull, it had a down-turned snout resembling a flamingo's beak with a vertical, zipper-like mouth. But two new fossil specimens, described in research published in the journal Science Advances, resolved the matter.
"On a scale of weirdness, I think this is up there with the best. It kind of reminds me of some of the Dr. Seuss creations," National Museums Scotland paleontologist Nicholas Fraser said.
Atopodentatus is the earliest-known herbivorous marine reptile, said paleontologist Olivier Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago.
Atopodentatus apparently used chisel-like teeth along the edge of its blunt, hammer-shaped snout to scrape algae off hard underwater surfaces. It then quickly opened its mouth to create suction before closing its jaws to filter the plant material through densely packed and needle-shaped teeth much like baleen whales strain tiny shrimp-like krill from seawater.
Atopodentatus, about 9 feet (2.75 meters) long, lived in a shallow sea in China's Yunnan province alongside fish and other marine reptiles, said paleontologist Chun Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
When thinking of hammerhead creatures, sharks may come to mind. But Atopodentatus' hammerhead feature differed in location and function from the sharks, whose eyes are on the end of lateral extensions on their head.
Atopodentatus appeared during the Triassic Period relatively soon after the biggest mass extinction of species in Earth's history, illustrating that life was bouncing back nicely. Other oddball creatures also swam the seas at the time, including a reptile called Dinocephalosaurus whose neck comprised half of its 17-foot (5.25 meters) length.
"If you saw this reptile (Atopodentatus) in isolation cruising around with some of the fishes of the day, I think you would say it was really quite absurd," Fraser said. "But alongside some of its fellow denizens of the deep, I think it would just appear as one more oddity in a mesmerizing world."
Life restoration of Atopodentatus (the "hammerhead") is shown in this image released May 6, 2016. Scientists on Friday announced the discovery in southern China of new fossils of a reptile from 242 million years ago called Atopodentatus that clarify the nature of this strange crocodile-sized, plant-eating sea-dweller. Courtesy Y. Chen/IVPP/Handout via REUTERS
A fossil of Atopodentatus unicus is seen alongside a reconstruction showing what it would have looked like in life is shown in this image released May 6, 2016. Scientists on Friday announced the discovery in southern China of new fossils of a reptile from 242 million years ago called Atopodentatus that clarify the nature of this strange crocodile-sized, plant-eating sea-dweller. Courtesy Nick Fraser/National Museums Scotland/Handout via REUTERS

Scientists describe weird ancient hammerhead reptile | World | News | Toronto Su

That looks more like a Spammerhead.. or maybe a duck-billed spamopus.

 

[Curious Cdn]

...looks like it had its beak slammed in a car door.

 

[Johnnny]

Excellent article

 

[spaminator]

Scientists reconstruct baffling 250-million-year-old aquatic reptile with a strange hammerhead mouth
Reuters
First posted: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 03:40 PM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 03:57 PM EDT
Not all scientific insights require a $1.1-billion experiment to observe gravity waves, or demand a giant particle collider be buried under Europe.
Sometimes all that’s needed are a few bucks worth of modelling clay and toothpicks — and, well, a pair of priceless 250-million-year-old fossils.
The fossils in question include an unusual reptilian skull, small but ending in a suddenly flaring mouth, like the face of a hammerhead shark or a fleshy harmonica.
Within the strange maw were rows and rows of needle teeth, stumping the paleontologists who had unearthed it where a sea once covered parts of China, millions of years ago.
The breakthrough came when they decided to reconstruct the creature’s head in brightly-coloured putty. “The jaw arrangement is very unusual, and we needed to be sure that hypothesis as to how the jaw would close really would work,” said Nick Fraser, an expert on Triassic animals at the National Museum of Scotland and an author of a study recently published in the journal Science Advances, told The Washington Post.
The reptile used its flared mouth to scrape away algae and plants from submerged rocks, and then it sucked down the watery mix. ” By gulping in this liquid mix of plant matter and sea water, the animal could close its mouth,” Fraser said, “and, using its tongue, force the water out of the side off the mouth and across the filter formed by the needle-shaped teeth.” The final clue was a row of chisel-like teeth at the leading edge of the jaw, which are similar to those of dinosaurs believed to have eaten plants. (Atopodentatus unicus wasn’t a dinosaur, however — those would arrive a few million years later.)
The work by Fraser and his colleagues overturn a 2014 hypothesis that A. unicus was even more bizarre. A previously-discovered specimen appeared to have a bifurcated snout that fit together vertically, like the teeth of a zipper. That struck Li Chun, an author of the Science Advances report and a paleontologist at Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in China, as a bit farfetched — even for the weirdness of the early Triassic period. In his view, Li wrote to The Washington Post in an email, the 2014 skull was crushed and too badly preserved reconstruct its original structure.
Scientists reconstruct baffling 250-million-year-old aquatic reptile with a stra