Fossil Ichthyosaur May Have Choked On Its Huge Dinner!

[suspsy]

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/surprise-inside-fossil-ichthyosaur-stomach-reveals-it-went-big-for-dinner-before-it-died/

A very cool find! It's almost like the Triassic/marine equivalent of Velociraptor vs Protoceratops.

[Shonisaurus]

A brand of dinosaurs could recreate that scene taking into account that dead dinosaurs such as tyrannosaurus, triceratops, stegosaurus or tenontosaurus have been produced, that dramatic scene could be reproduced, we still do not have dead prehistoric marine reptiles.

[Faelrin]

Such an absolutely stunning discovery. I suppose I'm not entirely surprised it seems to have died after trying to indulge on such a large meal either, (unless its cause of death was something else). Anyways, having evidence like this can go a long way to helping us understand their diets (or at least for some species), and it is absolutely fascinating to find an example of possible active predation in this manner, and in an ichthyosaur as well.

Here's the paper too (and open access thankfully): https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(20)30534-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2589004220305344%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

[Lanthanotus]

Since people seem to like "this fights/eats that" fossils but often shy away from the "museums" subforum, I allow myself to "hijack" this thread for the wonderful German fossil of Rhamphorhynchus vs Aspidorhynchus. Scroll to the middle of this reply.

[Sim]

This is more like Xiphactinus vs Gillicus than anything else.

A brand of dinosaurs could recreate that scene taking into account that dead dinosaurs such as tyrannosaurus, triceratops, stegosaurus or tenontosaurus have been produced, that dramatic scene could be reproduced, we still do not have dead prehistoric marine reptiles.

I would have no interest in a model recreating this scene.  Guizhouichthyosaurus is an interesting animal that doesn't have any figures yet, I'd like to see a model of a living Guizhouichthyosaurus.


Thanks @Faelrin for providing a link to the paper!  It provides an interesting description of the word "megafauna":

We therefore call the predators that feed on megafauna "megapredators"—the word megafauna traditionally refers to animals of adult human size (arbitrarily set at 44 kg) or larger (Stuart, 1991), although the threshold value may be as low as 10 kg in some studies (Wroe et al., 2004).

In the supplemental information it mentions this could be a new species of Guizhouichthyosaurus:

It most likely represents a new species of Guizhouichthyosaurus, but its description is beyond the scope of this study. We instead refer to it by the genus name only.

I hope to see the predator in this fossil classified soon!

[indohyus]

Better than a belly of Belemnites (try saying that 6 times fast).