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The 'very strange' prehistoric platypus that hunted by touch using its beak 250 million years ago
By MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 12:45 EST, 24 January 2019 | UPDATED: 13:19 EST, 24 January 2019
While the duckbilled platypus is one of the oddest creatures on earth today, its prehistoric relative was just as odd, archaeologists have revealed.
A newly discovered marine reptile, officially known as Eretmorhipis carrolldongi, swam the shallow seas in what is now China 250 million years ago, finding prey by touch using its bill.
Experts admit they were baffled by the animal's strange biology.
'This is a very strange animal,' Professor Ryosuke Motani, a paleontologist at the University of California, Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and coauthor on the paper in Scientific Reports said.
More:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6628919/The-strange-prehistoric-platypus-hunted-touch-250-million-years-ago.html
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Date:
January 24, 2019
Source:
University of California - Davis
Summary:
No animal alive today looks quite like a duckbilled platypus, but about 250 million years ago something very similar swam the shallow seas in what is now China, finding prey by touch with a cartilaginous bill.
Complete fossil and line drawing of Eretmorhipis carrolldongi. Related to the
dolphin-like ichthyosaurs, Eretmorhipis evolved in a world devastated by the
mass extinction event at the end of the Permian era.
Credit: L. Cheng et al, Scientific Reports, Creative Commons 4.0
dolphin-like ichthyosaurs, Eretmorhipis evolved in a world devastated by the
mass extinction event at the end of the Permian era.
Credit: L. Cheng et al, Scientific Reports, Creative Commons 4.0
No animal alive today looks quite like a duckbilled platypus, but about 250 million years ago something very similar swam the shallow seas in what is now China, finding prey by touch with a cartilaginous bill. The newly discovered marine reptile Eretmorhipis carrolldongi from the lower Triassic period is described in the journal Scientific Reports Jan. 24.
Apart from its platypus-like bill, Eretmorhipis was about 70 centimeters long with a long rigid body, small head and tiny eyes, and four flippers for swimming and steering. Bony plates ran down the animal's back.
Eretmorhipis was previously known only from partial fossils without a head, said Professor Ryosuke Motani, a paleontologist at the University of California, Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and coauthor on the paper.
"This is a very strange animal," Motani said. "When I started thinking about the biology I was really puzzled."
More:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190124095055.htm
