The dodo vertebra of a polar sea monster has been discovered that dates back 246 million days . Known as a nothosaur , the nautical reptilian lived just as thedinosaurswere getting start , and the fossil is the oldest of its kind ever found in the Southern Hemisphere .
The ancient fossil is a single vertebra that was excavated at the foundation of Mount Harper on the South Island of New Zealand . That location is particularly interesting , as until now grounds of reptile ’ other migration into the oceans was only known from the Arctic island of Spitsbergen , northwesterly North America , and southwestern China . It therefore provide a singular chance to dive into the account of sea reptiles in the Southern Hemisphere .
The fossil itself is not new , having first been discovered back in 1978 , but only with Modern analyses are we appreciating its significance . It belonged to a nothosaur , a sauropterygian relative ofplesiosaursthat grow to around 7 meters ( 23 foot ) long and used four paddle - like limbs to move through the water .
It might only be one vertebra, but it’s pretty impressive.Image credit: Benjamin Kear
“ The nothosaur found in New Zealand is over 40 million years sr. than the previously oldest known sauropterygian fossil from the Southern Hemisphere , ” say lead author Dr Benjamin Kear from The Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University in astatement . “ We show that these ancient ocean reptilian know in a shallow coastal surroundings teeming with maritime beast within what was then the southerly polar circle . ”
When the animal was alive , what we now do it as New Zealand lodge in the southern pivotal slide of an ancient super - ocean calledPanthalassa . Typically , the oldest nothosaur dodo have been get hold along what would ’ve been Panthalassa ’s northern margins , so this uncovering switches up what we think we know about where these animals originated and how they diffuse .
“ Using a prison term - calibrated evolutionary model of sauropterygian global distributions , we show that nothosaur originated near the equator , then rapidly scatter both due north and southwards at the same time as complex marine ecosystems became re - established after the cataclysmic hoi polloi extinction that denounce the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs , ” explain Kear .
“ The beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs was characterise by utmost globular warming , which permit these marine reptilian to thrive at the South Pole . This also suggests that the ancient diametrical regions were a likely road for their early ball-shaped migrations , much like the heroic trans - pelagic journeying undertaken by whale today . ”
“ Undoubtedly , there are more fossil remains of tenacious - extinctsea monsterswaiting to be discovered in New Zealand and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere . ”
Grab your hammers , lads . We ’re going nothosaur hunting .
The discipline is publish in the journalCurrent Biology .
