Posted on 12/04/2007 12:49:03 PM PST by NormsRevenge
OSLO, Norway - Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric "monster" reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday.
Initial excavation of a site on the Svalbard islands in August yielded the remains, teeth, skull fragments and vertebrae of a reptile estimated to measure nearly 40 feet long, said Joern Harald Hurum of the University of Oslo.
"It seems the monster is a new species," he told The Associated Press.
The reptile appears be the same species as another sea predator whose remains were found nearby on Svalbard last year. His team described those 150-million-year-old remains as belonging to a short-necked plesiosaur measuring more than 30 feet — "as long as a bus ... with teeth larger than cucumbers."
The short-necked plesiosaur was a voracious reptile often compared to the Tyrannosaurus rex of the oceans.
Mark Evans, a plesiosaur expert at the Leicester City Museums in Britain, said he not know enough about the Norwegian find to comment on it specifically. But he said new types of the sea reptiles are being found regularly.
"We are regularly seeing new species of plesiosaurs popping up — in a way because, in the past 10 or 15 years, there has been what we call a renaissance in plesiosaur research," Evans said by telephone.
Hurum said the team had only managed to excavate a 3-meter (yard) area of the find. The Norwegian-led team plans to present more detailed findings early next year, and return to Svalbard, 300 miles north of Norway's mainland, to excavate further next year.
“Hmmmm - and since reptiles can only live where it is warm (they are cold blooded) - it means there was global warming (and cooling) millions of years ago!!!!”
Well, considering that oxygen we breathe is largely a waste product of plants and some small organisms, yes, our atmosphere has changed dramatically over the great arc of time. Yet somehow life has endured. The problem with the worst of the global-warming fear-mongering is that it pretends humans, and other animals, are incapable of surviving if the environment changes. Life as we know it wouldn’t even EXIST if we didn’t have that ability. Is it possible that our planet is changing for the worse? Perhaps... I’m not obnoxious enough to pretend I know the answer. But the idea, perpetrated by the likes of Al Gore, that it means the end of the world is dishonest at best.
Me too; I thought at first that they had mislaid it.
T. Rex was warm blooded.
“With God as my witness, I thought plesiosaurs could fly.”
LOL. Me too. I read a lot of headlines that way and then have to giggle when I finally see it correctly.
Only on Japanese ships.
The Earth was clobbered by a comet that knocked it off the axis and rolled it some degrees. Thus, hot places became cold and cold became warm before the gravitational pulls were able to keep it in orbit.
Just like hitting a ball and defying gravity for a short time.
H.A.B. theory - Have Another Beer? I belive I will!
“with teeth larger than cucumbers.”
Like Janet Reno’s!
There is some evidence that loggerhead turtles can thermoregulate. Large tuna also.
Heheheh! I’ll sound the horn.
When I first arrived in Alaska, while in the USAF, I was warned to stay away from snow snakes. When I asked why they were so dangerous I was told that they would “crawl up your ass and freeze you to death”. Ever since that day I have stopped heeding any warnings in life.
Ping!
“When I first arrived in Alaska, while in the USAF, I was warned to stay away from snow snakes. When I asked why they were so dangerous I was told that they would “crawl up your ass and freeze you to death”. Ever since that day I have stopped heeding any warnings in life.”
My first full day in Alaska (June 4th), I walked outside with a T-shirt & blue jeans, few minutes later it started snowing out.
HEY!!! How about a warning before posting pictures like this????
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