Gå direkt till innehåll

Pressmeddelande -

Battle scars found on an ancient sea monster

Scars on the jaw of a 120 million year old marine reptile suggest that life might not have been easy in the ancient polar oceans. The healed bite wounds were probably made by a member of the same species. Such injuries give important clues about the social behaviour of extinct sea creatures from the time of dinosaurs. The find is described in a forthcoming issue of Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Found in the remote desert near the town of Marree in northern South Australia, the fossilised skeleton belonged to an ichthyosaur, a dolphin-like marine reptile that lived during the 'Age of Dinosaurs'. Ichthyosaurs were fast swimming predators that fed on fish and squid-like animals. Adults would have been around six metres in length and had long-snouted heads with over 100 pointed, crocodile-like teeth.

When the ichthyosaur was alive, the Australian continent was still joined to Antarctica and would have been much further south than it is today close to the southern polar circle. What is now arid grassland was then the bottom of a vast inland sea that experienced freezing water temperatures and even seasonal icebergs.

The surprising discovery of well preserved bite marks on the bones of the ichthyosaur's lower jaw were made during painstaking cleaning and reassembly of its skeleton in the laboratory. Evidence of advanced healing indicates that the animal survived the attack and lived on for some time afterwards.

“Pathological traces on ancient fossilised bones and teeth give unique insights into the lives and social behaviours of extinct animals” says Benjamin Kear, one of the authors of the study and an Assistant Professor with the Palaeobiology Programme at Uppsala University. “Such finds have also rarely been reported in ichthyosaurs before”.

The size and spacing of the tooth marks do not match any potential predators or prey. Rather, they are most consistent with another adult ichthyosaur, suggesting that the wounds were inflicted during combat over food, mates or territory. Facial biting is a common social interaction observed in animals today and is often directed towards restraining the opponents jaws.

For more information, please contact:
Benjamin Kear
Tel: +46-18-471 2738
E-mail: benjamin.kear@geo.uu.se

Read the article in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. Advance online version.


MARIA ZAMMIT and BENJAMIN P. KEAR
Zammit, M. and Kear, B.P. 201X. Healed bite marks on a Cretaceous ichthyosaur. Acta
Palaeontologica Polonica 5X (X): xxx-xxx. doi:10.4202/app.2010.0117


Uppsala universitet - kvalitet, kunskap och kreativitet sedan 1477. Forskning i världsklass och högklassig utbildning till global nytta för samhälle, näringsliv och kultur. Uppsala universitet är ett av norra Europas högst rankade lärosäten. www.uu.se

Kontakter

Linda Koffmar

Presskontakt biträdande presschef Forskning, utbildning, övergripande 018-471 1959

Uppsala universitet - kvalitet, kunskap och kreativitet sedan 1477.

Uppsala universitet är Sveriges äldsta universitet, grundat 1477. Vi har över 50 000 studenter och 7 500 medarbetare i Uppsala och i Visby. Vi är ett brett forskningsuniversitet med forskning inom samhällsvetenskaper, humaniora, teknikvetenskap, naturvetenskap, medicin och farmakologi. Universitetet är återkommande rankat som ett av världens främsta universitet, med målet att bedriva utbildning och forskning av högsta kvalitet och relevans för att göra långsiktig skillnad i samhället.

Uppsala universitet

Segerstedthuset, Dag Hammarskjölds väg 7
752 36 Uppsala
Sweden

Besök våra andra nyhetsrum