*Congratulations on your wonderful achievements!* I just went on a trip to the sea, and I accidentally found next to my beach towel on the Romanian shore of the Black Sea, a slightly bent fossil tooth, dark gray-brown in color, 3 and a half centimeters long. The major axis of the oval section of the base is 1 and a half centimeters and the minor axis is 0.9 centimeters. Between the two halves between the ridges on the convex side and the concave side of the tooth, one half is smooth but the other half has 3 other ridges, of which the one in the center is larger and bifurcates into two ridges at a distance of one third from the base. The base of the tooth seems broken and has no root. The tip of the tooth and half of the concave part are blunt. All tooth ridges are more or less chamfered. I spent other hours looking for other fossil teeth nearby, but without success. I am happy to hold in my hand a fossil of an animal that probably lived a thousand times earlier than the time when the human species existed. *Do you think it could be a mosasaur or other prehistoric animal?*
I haven't seen them myself but they must have been huge! We still don't know how big these animals got given the lack of evidence. It is suspected though they may have got larger than 20 meters!
@@TheEtchesCollection The idea of pliosaurs exceeding 20 m is based on which material ? A 20 m pliosaur wouldn't have a skull twice larger than the Dorset pliosaur ?
There have been large vertebrae found from the megalodon which would indicate it being a large shark but the estimated proportions seem to change quite frequently based on exactly that concept. 😅
This group of animals and their failure to adapt has always confused me. Both Sharks and Crocodilians managed to make the cut while all the carnivorous ''full time'' marine reptiles pretty much went extinct within a flash despite some of their respective members bein north of 100 million years in the making. They varied massively in terms of size but even the smaller ones got wiped out. The distribution of their fossils all over the globe also shows that they were able to adapt to all different sorts of climates just like many modern day warm blooded animals. That in combination with the amazing healing abilities of modern day reptiles really makes me wonder WHY?
It really is a complicated question to answer and nobody really knows, certain groups did go extinct earlier such as the pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs around 90 million years ago, thought to be due down to competition from mosasaurs, however the mosasaurs and plesiosaurs didn't survive the mass extinction which given the diversity as you mentioned does seem strange. At that time though everything was getting larger, pterosaurs and dinosaurs were the biggest they had ever been. To our knowledge it can only be assumed that then environmental pressures were just too great for those reptile groups.
The reason must have been something that all marine reptile species had in common despite their biodiversity. And with the destruction of so many ecological niches, the competition increases. Maybe crocodiles and sharks simply outcompeted the Late Cretaceous marine reptiles and drove them to extinction
@@ni5439 It could have something to do with most of them being endothermic while both sharks and crocodilians tend to be ectothermic. That being said tho plenty of marine reptiles before them managed to survive extinction events and climate change so theres gotta be something else involved
Liopleurodon and Kronosaurus are examples of the Pliosaurus clade. They still exist and are great examples of the of genus and species with in the pliosaur group. But they to can be reffered to as pliosaurs. The term pliosaur indicates the family, while there is a genus called pliosaurus.
Dear Reader, I want you to know today that Jesus Christ loves you. The fact is, He loves you so much that He made the ultimate sacrifice for you! You see, God is a perfect, just God who will not tolerate sinful people coming into heaven, and the problem is that we are sinful by nature. No matter how much good we do, it will never be enough to meet God's perfect standard. The good Lord knew this, and He loved us so much that He came down to earth, lived a sinless life, and died to take the sin of the world. Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." All you have to do is ask the Lord to forgive your sin and tell Him that you accept His gift of salvation as the ONLY way to eternal life. Please consider salvation today; you never know when your time may be up. Remember, Jesus loves you! I hope to meet you in heaven one day!
You may well be right, there is a lot of ongoing debate regarding the largest predators. What I find particularly interesting is that although Pliosaur's potentially had the largest bite force of any reptile and potentially the largest teeth and jaws, the manoeuvrability of the Mosasaur made them more successful. Which is what evolution is all about, bigger isn't always better. The largest marine reptiles of all time though are the Late Triassic early Jurassic Ichthyosaurs that potentially grew up to 85ft as large as a blue whale. Which often seem to be left out of the mega-predator discussions.
@@TheEtchesCollection icthyosaurs were definitely gargantuan at their largest and I'm not saying that all blue whales are the same size but they've been known to grow to lengths excess of 100 feet. 85' could be a solid average but I feel that would be better placed with fin whales
@@jordanrowell8576 Ah how interesting, I must admit I'm not overly familiar with whale sizes. It's incredible to think how large these animals are/were and with such an entirely different feeding approach. I would love to see a whale in the wild. The sense of perspective and scale that I image it gives you must be truly amazing.
Cryptology love it
*Congratulations on your wonderful achievements!*
I just went on a trip to the sea, and I accidentally found next to my beach towel on the Romanian shore of the Black Sea, a slightly bent fossil tooth, dark gray-brown in color, 3 and a half centimeters long. The major axis of the oval section of the base is 1 and a half centimeters and the minor axis is 0.9 centimeters. Between the two halves between the ridges on the convex side and the concave side of the tooth, one half is smooth but the other half has 3 other ridges, of which the one in the center is larger and bifurcates into two ridges at a distance of one third from the base. The base of the tooth seems broken and has no root. The tip of the tooth and half of the concave part are blunt. All tooth ridges are more or less chamfered.
I spent other hours looking for other fossil teeth nearby, but without success.
I am happy to hold in my hand a fossil of an animal that probably lived a thousand times earlier than the time when the human species existed.
*Do you think it could be a mosasaur or other prehistoric animal?*
I absolutely love this channel. A wealth of information! What a legend he is
Thank you so much! We really appreciate you saying that. Steve certainly is a legend although he doesn't believe it!
Teeth from a 3 metre long Pliosaurus skull!!!?!?! They must have been massive!
I haven't seen them myself but they must have been huge! We still don't know how big these animals got given the lack of evidence. It is suspected though they may have got larger than 20 meters!
@@TheEtchesCollection The idea of pliosaurs exceeding 20 m is based on which material ? A 20 m pliosaur wouldn't have a skull twice larger than the Dorset pliosaur ?
Still wonder if the meg wasn't a huge 50ft shark but a normal size shark with a giant mouth 😅
There have been large vertebrae found from the megalodon which would indicate it being a large shark but the estimated proportions seem to change quite frequently based on exactly that concept. 😅
Has the 2.5 meter skull in the Dorset museum been described? If so do you know its specimen ID and what species it was assigned to?
The skull in dorchester museum underwent study a few years ago and is currently assigned Pliosaurus Kevani.
@@TheEtchesCollection I see thank you
It was described as Pliosaurus kevani a decade ago,
This group of animals and their failure to adapt has always confused me.
Both Sharks and Crocodilians managed to make the cut while all the carnivorous ''full time'' marine reptiles pretty much went extinct within a flash despite some of their respective members bein north of 100 million years in the making. They varied massively in terms of size but even the smaller ones got wiped out. The distribution of their fossils all over the globe also shows that they were able to adapt to all different sorts of climates just like many modern day warm blooded animals. That in combination with the amazing healing abilities of modern day reptiles really makes me wonder WHY?
It really is a complicated question to answer and nobody really knows, certain groups did go extinct earlier such as the pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs around 90 million years ago, thought to be due down to competition from mosasaurs, however the mosasaurs and plesiosaurs didn't survive the mass extinction which given the diversity as you mentioned does seem strange. At that time though everything was getting larger, pterosaurs and dinosaurs were the biggest they had ever been. To our knowledge it can only be assumed that then environmental pressures were just too great for those reptile groups.
The reason must have been something that all marine reptile species had in common despite their biodiversity.
And with the destruction of so many ecological niches, the competition increases. Maybe crocodiles and sharks simply outcompeted the Late Cretaceous marine reptiles and drove them to extinction
@@ni5439 It could have something to do with most of them being endothermic while both sharks and crocodilians tend to be ectothermic.
That being said tho plenty of marine reptiles before them managed to survive extinction events and climate change so theres gotta be something else involved
So Liopleurodon doesn't exist? What about Kronosaurus? Why call all Pliosaurs the same?
Liopleurodon and Kronosaurus are examples of the Pliosaurus clade. They still exist and are great examples of the of genus and species with in the pliosaur group. But they to can be reffered to as pliosaurs. The term pliosaur indicates the family, while there is a genus called pliosaurus.
Dear Reader,
I want you to know today that Jesus Christ loves you.
The fact is, He loves you so much that He made the ultimate sacrifice for you! You see, God is a perfect, just God who will not tolerate sinful people coming into heaven, and the problem is that we are sinful by nature. No matter how much good we do, it will never be enough to meet God's perfect standard. The good Lord knew this, and He loved us so much that He came down to earth, lived a sinless life, and died to take the sin of the world.
Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
All you have to do is ask the Lord to forgive your sin and tell Him that you accept His gift of salvation as the ONLY way to eternal life.
Please consider salvation today; you never know when your time may be up. Remember, Jesus loves you! I hope to meet you in heaven one day!
Get bent, bro.
I believe the largest mosasaurs were up to 50 feet long maybe longer
You may well be right, there is a lot of ongoing debate regarding the largest predators. What I find particularly interesting is that although Pliosaur's potentially had the largest bite force of any reptile and potentially the largest teeth and jaws, the manoeuvrability of the Mosasaur made them more successful. Which is what evolution is all about, bigger isn't always better. The largest marine reptiles of all time though are the Late Triassic early Jurassic Ichthyosaurs that potentially grew up to 85ft as large as a blue whale. Which often seem to be left out of the mega-predator discussions.
@@TheEtchesCollection icthyosaurs were definitely gargantuan at their largest and I'm not saying that all blue whales are the same size but they've been known to grow to lengths excess of 100 feet. 85' could be a solid average but I feel that would be better placed with fin whales
@@jordanrowell8576 Ah how interesting, I must admit I'm not overly familiar with whale sizes. It's incredible to think how large these animals are/were and with such an entirely different feeding approach. I would love to see a whale in the wild. The sense of perspective and scale that I image it gives you must be truly amazing.