Mesozoic marine reptile news

[bh480@scn.org]

From: Ben Creisler bh480@scn.org

Mesozoic marine reptile news

With the heat of summer and a stampede of new dinosaurs on
the way over the next few months, it might be nice to take
a cool dip in the Mesozoic oceans for a couple of stories
about marine reptiles taken off the web and elsewhere.

Ancient Antarctic circle breeding grounds for plesiosaurs:
The Express June 28, 2001
DIGGERS FIND COOL FOSSILS IN OUTBACK
FROM MARIE McINERNEY IN COOBER PEDY, AUSTRALIA
ON Australia's desolate Outback moonplain, where the sands
sizzle in the summer heat, it's hard to imagine an iceberg
floating by or a school of breeding prehistoric sea
monsters.
Yet that's the vision being conjured up now in this remote
desert region after several important fossil finds.
A chance discovery by scientists has turned the moonplain -
a vast expanse of weathered shale 29 miles from the
remote opal-mining town of Coober Pedy - into one of the
world's most important scientific sites.
Fossils show that where the sun now scorches the ground,
giant marine animals such as long-necked plesiosaurs and
dolphin-like ichthyosaurs lived in polar conditions, an
environment not previously imagined for these reptiles.
The area is also producing an unprecedented number of baby
and juvenile fossils, which make up about 95 per cent of
all finds here, suggesting it was once a rare breeding
ground for these prehistoric sea monsters.
Scientists say the area is unique, yielding fossils which
have been perfectly preserved.
"This is a very unusual place, " said palaeontologist Ben
Kear from the South Australian Museum. "It's magic stuff -
to get out and dig it up is fabulous. You see this stuff
for the very first time and it's an animal which is
extinct, it has no living relatives, no one has ever seen
one and no one ever will."
Around 120million years ago, most of Australia's land mass
was covered by an inland sea and was attached to
Antarctica, forming part of the legendary super-continent
of Gondwana, which separated into India, Africa,
Australia, New Zealand, South America and Antarctica.
"Quite honestly, it looks like the bottom of the sea even
now, " said Mr Kear.
"If you take away the few bits of trees and grass and the
odd kangaroo and fill it up with 100ft or so of water, you
can imagine the odd plesiosaur swimming by, an iceberg
going over your head."
The finds here have provided exciting proof that giant
marine reptiles did not, as was assumed, just live in the
world's tropical landscapes.
"This is the first evidence from anywhere in the world
where you have these kind of marine reptiles living in
environments with icebergs, " said Kear.
"You're talking about a reptile which is warm, like a
mammal."
Coober Pedy, the world's biggest supplier of opals, has
long produced fascinating fossils, often opalised, giving
enough detail to let scientists reconstruct even muscles.
"Opalisation is beautiful preservation, things are three-
dimensional, uncrushed, " said Kear. "When you're talking
about a bone which is 120-million years old and you can
see things like the channels through which blood vessels
ran, it's that good.
"These things are absolutely priceless scientifically, a
time capsule from 120-million years ago. They're giving us
an insight into what has gone before, what life has been."
Copyright 2001 EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS

"New" plesiosaur from Argentina
Sulcusuchus erraini Gasparini & Spalletti 1990, originally
described as a dyrosaurid crocodile from the Maastrichtian
of Patagonia (Argentina) has been reidentified as a short-
necked polycotylid plesiosaur.

Gasparini, Z. & L. Spalletti. 1990. Un nuevo crocodilo en
los depositos mareales maastrichtianos de la Patagonia
noroccidental Translated [New crocodile from the
Maestrichtian intertidal deposits of northwestern
Patagonia.] Ameghiniana. 27 (1-2): 141-150.

Gasparini, Z. &  M.de la Fuente. 2000. Turtles and
plesiosaurs of the La Colonia Formation (Upper Cretaceous)
from Patagonia, Argentina. REVISTA ESPANOLA DE
PALEONTOLOGIA 15(1), Enero, 2000: 23-35. [This article
reidentifies Sulcusuchus as a polycotylid plesiosaur.]

I somehow missed this switch and need to update my
plesiosaur guide (among many other updates to Dinosauria
On-line stuff!).  I found at least one website that still
lists Sulcusuchus as a crocodile.