Baleen whales like humpback whales, northern lights, southern lights and minks are some of nature’s best known filter feeders. These mammals use the hard keratin baleen plates in their mouths to literally ingest large amounts of water and snack on small organisms such as krill and plankton. However, ancient reptiles may have been the first animals to eat this way.
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A team of British and Chinese scientists has discovered some remarkable new fossils belonging to a group of reptiles that were already filter-feeding about 250 million years ago. Here are the findings: The study was published in the journal on August 7 BMC ecology and evolution.
Whales aren’t the only animals used today filter feeding.fishy Basking sharks use gills to feed from the water. Until now, there has been little evidence from the fossil record to suggest ancient marine reptiles. Mesozoic (about 252-66 million years ago) were filter feeders.
In this study, the research team found two new skull fossils belonging to an early marine reptile called Hupesuchus nanchangensis.Creature about 3 feet long Lived in China during the Lower Triassic, about 248 million years ago. Due to the intensification of food competition during this period, H. nanchangensis Develop a specialized feeding system.
“This was a period of turmoil just three million years after the massive end-Permian extinction that wiped out most of life. It was amazing to discover that it completely changed the said in a statement.
One of the specimens is well-preserved from head to collarbone (clavicle), and the other is a nearly complete skeleton. The researchers compared the shape and dimensions of the latter’s skull to those of 130 different aquatic animals, including 15 baleen whales, 52 toothed whales, 23 seals, 14 crocodiles, 25 birds and platypus.
The researchers believe that the skull of Hupessuchus contains an extended throat area that allows the reptile to ingest large amounts of water containing small shrimp-like prey, and a baleen whale-like structure that filters food as it swims forward. It was found that there is a soft structure such as
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The Hupesyx skull has several grooves or notches along the edge of the jaw, similar to those of a baleen whale. These modern mammals have horny strips in their mouths instead of teeth like toothed whales and toothed whales.
The near-complete fossilized skull had a long snout composed of unfused cords of bone with a long space between them the length of the animal’s snout. This skull shape is found only in baleen whales, which allows them to eat krill.
“We were surprised to see such an adaptation in such an early marine reptile,” said study co-author Zhicheng Huang, a paleontologist at China’s Wuhan Geological Survey Center. said in a statement. “The Hupeshutian are a unique group of Chinese ichthyosaurs, known for 50 years, but their way of life was not fully understood.”
Thanks to its rigid body, H. nanchangensis It was likely a slow swimmer, and this lack of speed suggests that it may have used filtered bait, similar to today’s fish. arctic whale Right whale. These whales swim with their mouths wide open near the surface, filtering out food in the water.
These new discoveries are an example of convergent evolution, the process by which similar traits evolve independently in different species.
