Posted on 10/10/2011 6:55:25 AM PDT by decimon
Boulder, CO, USA - Long before whales, the oceans of Earth were roamed by a very different kind of air-breathing leviathan. Snaggle-toothed ichthyosaurs larger than school buses swam at the top of the Triassic Period ocean food chain, or so it seemed before Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark McMenamin took a look at some of their remains in Nevada. Now he thinks there was an even larger and more cunning sea monster that preyed on ichthyosaurs: a kraken of such mythological proportions it would have sent Captain Nemo running for dry land. McMenamin will be presenting the results of his work on Monday, 10 October at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis.
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“It became very clear that something very odd was going on there,” said McMenamin. “It was a very odd configuration of bones.”
First of all, the different degrees of etching on the bones suggested that the shonisaurs were not all killed and buried at the same time. It also looked like the bones had been purposefully rearranged. That it got him thinking about a particular modern predator that is known for just this sort of intelligent manipulation of bones.
“Modern octopus will do this,” McMenamin said. What if there was an ancient, very large sort of octopus, like the kraken of mythology. “I think that these things were captured by the kraken and taken to the midden and the cephalopod would take them apart.”
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(Excerpt) Read more at geosociety.org ...
It’s pretty impressive to watch these boneless creatures take down a monster of the deeps!
The ichtyosaurs are NOT a prey species..they are predators. In nature, predators will only prey on each other when there is competition for a food source and/or territory. They avoid attacking each other because even the winner can suffer a disabling injury..and a disable predator is soon to be a DEAD predator..
Tell that to the giant squid and sperm whales.
Indeed. This thread will be a league of it's own. Meantime; altogether weird... ;-)
Marine life is somewhat different than land animals. That’s because there is no large amount of “grass” or green plants under water to support lots of life. Squid and octopi eat hugh amounts of food...their life span is very compressed. They reach maturity, reproduce, and die, often in les than two years. Thus they need lots of fuel for growth. Their prey is often much smaller than their own size...therefore they eat almost continuously...thus one could view herds of small fish almost as grazing pasture for large prey species. A lion, by comparison, would not waste the energy to continuously kill very small mammals..unless thee was no choice. Rather, the pride kills a large animal.then each lion may gorge themselves...eat 25% of their body weight, then literally lay there unable to move for several days..until they do it again. Its the MOST efficient system.because the lion expends tremendous energy in each kill attempt..and risks injury each time.
Come again?
I thought government leaders have always had to provide their addresses. My mail has been getting to Nancy Pelosi just fine, and now you say you just found her house? Bah...
ping
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks decimon. |
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...'Uniquely, octopuses have more than half their nerves in their arms and have even been shown to partially think with their arms..."
I wish I could have gotten out of work to attend this conference today.
Aim for the eyes, maties!
;’)
LOvecraft was a MASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We wanted you to have the honors. ;-)
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