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| English: Eonatator sternbergi, a mosasaur from the Late Cretaceous of Kansas. Digital. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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The New York Times International Weekly
Science & Technology
FINDINGS
Reptiles in Fresh Water
Mosasaurs were large, ancient relatives of monitor lizards common during the Late Cretaceous period, 66 million to 100 million years ago. They were found near shallow marine areas in salt water. But researchers now say a newly discovered species of mosasaur lived in fresh water river environments. This species probably adapted to fresh water the same way river dolphins in Asia and South America did.
The new mosasaur has been named Pannoniasaurus inexpectatus. Researchers discuss the species and its fossils in the journal PLoS One.
The fossils suggest that the mosasaur had limbs like a terrestrial lizard; a flattened, crocodilian skull; and a long tail about half the length of its body. (The bodies ranged from less than a meter to about six meters, though the average was about three meters.)
“These animals were undulating their tail like a crocodile to propel their movement in water,” said an author of the study, Laszlo Makadi, a palaeontologist at the Hungarian Natural History Museum.”They used their limbs just to brake and steer.”
The fossils were discovered in an open-pit bauxite mine in the Bakony Mountains in Western Hungary.
SINDYA N. BHANOO
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Article taken from TODAY Paper, Saturday Edition, 05-Jan-2013
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