Topic ID #13324 - posted 8/15/2011 3:25 AM
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
"Sea Monster" Fetus Found—Proof Plesiosaurs Had Live Young?
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
"Sea Monster" Fetus Found—Proof Plesiosaurs Had Live Young?
Prehistoric reptiles gave birth to live young, fossil suggests.
Ker Than for National Geographic News
Published August 11, 2011
Like whales, humans, and most other mammals, plesiosaurs—giant, long-necked marine reptiles of dinosaur times—gave birth to live young, a new fossil study suggests.
Even as it apparently solves one mystery, though, the finding raises another: Did the "sea monsters" swam in mother-child pairs or even in larger groups, like modern whales and dolphins?
The study focused on a 78-million-year-old, 15.4-foot-long (4.7-meter-long) adult Polycotylus latippinus plesiosaur fossil found in 1987. The fossil's abdominal cavity contains tiny bones—parts of a plesiosaur that hadn't been born by the time its mother died.
Read more here.
Prehistoric reptiles gave birth to live young, fossil suggests.
Ker Than for National Geographic News
Published August 11, 2011
Like whales, humans, and most other mammals, plesiosaurs—giant, long-necked marine reptiles of dinosaur times—gave birth to live young, a new fossil study suggests.
Even as it apparently solves one mystery, though, the finding raises another: Did the "sea monsters" swam in mother-child pairs or even in larger groups, like modern whales and dolphins?
The study focused on a 78-million-year-old, 15.4-foot-long (4.7-meter-long) adult Polycotylus latippinus plesiosaur fossil found in 1987. The fossil's abdominal cavity contains tiny bones—parts of a plesiosaur that hadn't been born by the time its mother died.
Read more here.
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