In the UK, paleontologists have recovered a giant skull of a marine reptile pliosaurus, which lived in the ocean about 150 million years ago, from the Jurassic rocks on the coast of Dorset, BBC reports.
It is noted that the length of the found skull is about 2 meters.
“This is one of the best fossils I have ever worked with. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is intact.”Paleontologist Steve Etches.
According to Steve Etches, the uniqueness of the of the find is that it is completely preserved.
“The lower jaw and the upper part of the skull are connected to each other, as they would have been in life. There is hardly a single specimen in the world with this level of detail. And if there are, many details are missing, while this one, although slightly distorted, has all the bones present,” the scientist noted.
The pliosaur had 130 teeth and its length reached 10-12 meters.
It had 4 flipper-like limbs, which allowed it to move at high speed. It is also noted that the pliosaurus ate other reptiles, including weaker representatives of its species.
The peculiarity of the pliosaur’s jaws was their strength – they squeezed the victim with a force of 3.3 thousand tons. For comparison, sea crocodiles have the most powerful jaws among living animals – 1.6 thousand tons.
