Extinct Swordfish-shaped Marine Reptile Discovered
Published:30 Nov.2021 Source:McGill University
‘This animal evolved a unique dentition that allowed it to eat large prey,’ says Hans Larsson, Director of the Redpath Museum at McGill University. ‘Whereas other ichthyosaurs had small, equally sized teeth for feeding on small prey, this new species modified its tooth sizes and spacing to build an arsenal of teeth for dispatching large prey, like big fishes and other marine reptiles.’
‘We decided to name it Kyhytysuka which translates to ‘the one that cuts with something sharp’ in an indigenous language from the region in central Colombia where the fossil was found, to honour the ancient Muisca culture that existed there for millennia,’ says Dirley Cortes, a graduate student under the supervision of Hans Larsson and Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.