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| Alaska's own Gunakadeit joseeae by the amazing Gabriel Ugueto, or @SerpenIllus on the Twitters. |
A very long time ago, I posted an essay about one of my
favorite groups of Triassic marine reptiles: thalattosaurs. These lizard-shaped
swimmers, while generally similar in body form, differ from one another quite
strongly in terms of feeding adaptations. While Anshunsaurus and Askeptosaurus
may seem, to our modern eyes, rather vanilla in their clearly faunivorous
dentition, others strain credulity. Xinpusaurus,
for example, possesses a bizarre notched upper jaw and, in some specimens, an
elongate premaxillary spear which overshoots the the lower jaw by
an impressive degree, calling to mind swordfish and swordfish-snouted
ichthyosaurs. Thalattosaurus and its
“claraziid” brethren have reduced, shell-crushing dentition and snouts which
curve downward—Hescheleria takes this
trend to a puzzling extreme. Thalattosaurs also occupied a wide range of body
lengths (1-5 meters). While some were more terrestrially capable than others,
the group never seemed to stray far from the nearshore niche.
