Evidence Supporting Predation of 4-m Marine Reptile by Triassic Megapredator
Da-Yong Jiang,
Ryosuke Motani,
Andrea Tintori,
Olivier Rieppel,
Cheng Ji,
Min Zhou,
Xue Wang,
Hao Lu,
Zhi-Guang Li
Affiliations
Da-Yong Jiang
Laboratory of Orogenic Belt and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education; Department of Geology and Geological Museum, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Yiheyuan Street. 5, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China; Corresponding author
Ryosuke Motani
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA; Corresponding author
Andrea Tintori
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Mangiagalli, 34-20133 Milano, Italy
Olivier Rieppel
Integrative Research Center, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL 60605-2496, USA
Cheng Ji
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing East Road 39, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210008, People's Republic of China
Min Zhou
Laboratory of Orogenic Belt and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education; Department of Geology and Geological Museum, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Yiheyuan Street. 5, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
Xue Wang
Laboratory of Orogenic Belt and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education; Department of Geology and Geological Museum, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Yiheyuan Street. 5, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
Hao Lu
Laboratory of Orogenic Belt and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education; Department of Geology and Geological Museum, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Yiheyuan Street. 5, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
Zhi-Guang Li
The Geoscience Museum, Hebei GEO University, No. 136 East Huai'an Road, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050031, People's Republic of China
Summary: Air-breathing marine predators have been essential components of the marine ecosystem since the Triassic. Many of them are considered the apex predators but without direct evidence—dietary inferences are usually based on circumstantial evidence, such as tooth shape. Here we report a fossil that likely represents the oldest evidence for predation on megafauna, i.e., animals equal to or larger than humans, by marine tetrapods—a thalattosaur (∼4 m in total length) in the stomach of a Middle Triassic ichthyosaur (∼5 m). The predator has grasping teeth yet swallowed the body trunk of the prey in one to several pieces. There were many more Mesozoic marine reptiles with similar grasping teeth, so megafaunal predation was likely more widespread than presently conceived. Megafaunal predation probably started nearly simultaneously in multiple lineages of marine reptiles in the Illyrian (about 242–243 million years ago).
