“Blue Dragon” Discovered in Japan Is Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before

In 1764, a Dutch army lieutenant encountered something unexpected and strange in the hills of a limestone quarry next to the present-day city of Maastricht. The discovery included the giant skull of a prehistoric reptile, described at the time as “a large breathing fish”, similar to a whale but with much sharper teeth. He later named it Mosasaurus, meaning “lizard of the Meuse” because it was discovered near the Meuse River. Since then this family MosasaurIt grew up and we find all kinds of its remains scattered throughout Europe, Asia, North America, South America and even Antarctica.

Mosasaurs represent a large group sea ​​hunter whose diameter in many cases easily exceeded ten meters and which became the canonical king of the cretaceous oceans For millions of years.

However, no matter how much we think we know about dinosaurs… sooner or later a new fossil comes along that surprises paleontologists with unknown and fascinating features. This is exactly what happened a few days ago along the banks of the Aridagawa River in Wakayama Prefecture (Japan), where a team of researchers Nearly complete remains of a new species of mosasaur discovered that had never been seen before,

The discovery has been published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology and scientists have described it as “Megapterygius wakayamensis”, a term meaning “large-winged” reptile, because its hind wings are unusually large, while wakayamensis refers to the Japanese prefecture in which it has been found. Since scientific names are often complex and difficult for the general public to remember, researchers have added a nickname for the new reptile and named it Wakayama Saryu. Sarayuwhich is in japanese mythology a blue aquatic dragon,

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In 2006, paleontologist Akihiro Misaki was searching for ammonite fossils on the banks of the Aridagawa River when he came across a giant black vertebra. He immediately forgot his search for the mollusk and concentrated on that strange fragment. It turned out to be one of the most complete mosasaur skeletons ever found and the remains included its impressive skull, and a complete cervical and dorsal vertebral chain with more than 40 vertebrae, paired ribs, right and left front fins, and left hind fin. Is. , Of course, carefully extracting all these pieces, correctly assembling the giant puzzle, conducting a detailed study and providing sufficient description is no easy task and, in this case, it took paleontologists about 17 years to find the first vertebra from Misaki. Have started.

A full view of the discovered remains shows us mighty sea saurianOf size similar to white sharkwhich had extra-long rear wings and a large dorsal fin, These qualities made this “blue dragon” a fearsome, fast and accurate hunter when hunting in the waters of what would now be the Pacific Ocean, about 72 million years ago.

This mix between shark and orca is unprecedented and experts themselves admit that “This type of body morphology has no modern analogs., from fish to penguins or sea turtles. “We don’t know of any animal that has four large feathers that they use in conjunction with a tail feather.”

“I thought I knew mosasaurs well,” explains Takuya Konishi, lead author of the published study, “but we soon discovered that this was something we had never seen before.”

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Konishi, Takuya, et al. “A newly derived mosasaurine (Squamata: Mosasaurinae) from southwestern Japan reveals unexpected postcranial diversity among hydropedal mosasaurs”. Journal of Systematic Paleontology (2023) doi:10.1080/14772019.2023.2277921.

Harry Baker « 72-million-year-old ‘Blue Dragon’ found in Japan is unlike anything we’ve ever seen, experts say Live Science (2023)