On a Norwegian island within the Arctic Circle, researchers have unearthed the fossilized remains of a marine monster they call “Predator X.” The 50-foot beast is a new species of pliosaur, and researchers say the enormous reptile ruled the Jurassic seas some 147 million years ago…. “Its anatomy, physiology and hunting strategy all point to it being the ultimate predator – the most dangerous creature to patrol the Earth’s oceans” [New Scientist], the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo said in a breathless press release.
Predator X swept through the seas some 147 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, when dinosaurs walked the land. The creature swam with its four flippers, and relied on its crushing jaw power to bring down its prey–lead researcher Joern Hurum estimates that its had 33,000 pounds per square inch bite force. Says Hurum: “With a skull that’s more than 10 feet long you’d expect the bite to be powerful but this is off the scale…. It’s much more powerful than T-Rex” [Reuters]. Hurum has said that a previously discovered fossil pliosaur was big enough to chomp on a small car. He said the bite estimates for the latest fossil forced a rethink. “This one is more like it could crush a Hummer,” he said [Reuters]. Hurum theorizes that the 45-ton predator feasted on fish and marine reptiles, including ichthyosaurs and long-necked plesiosaurs.
Paleontologists dug up the partial skull and the fragmented skeleton of a giant pliosaur last summer on the island of Spitsbergen. Fossil hunters get used to working in the heat and cold, the dry and wet, but even without counting the polar bears nosing around their dig, Spitsbergen posed unusual challenges. It has only a three-week window for excavating, from the end of July through much of August. That is after the warmth of a brief summer has thawed upper layers of the ground and before the onset of the round-the-clock darkness of Arctic winter [The New York Times]. A documentary about the expedition will be shown on the History Channel later this month.
The researchers haven’t yet given the new species a scientific name, and although they’ve described their findings at scientific conferences, they have yet to publish their work in a peer-reviewed journal–they say that will happen later this year.
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Image: Atlantic Productions
March 17th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Clone it! We got a bunch of hummers that need crushing, for the environment’s sake.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:26 am
How does this sea predator compare to Megalodon? Who’s more of a beast?
March 18th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Megalodon, according to it’s Wikipedia entry [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon#Size_estimation ] is sized up roughly as such:
A megalodon could grow up to 18.2 meters (60ft) based on various measurements of Jaw/tooth size, weighing about 77 tons. As for the bite force, I couldn’t find any data but it is known that there are fossilized WHALE vertibre with it’s teeth marks, suggesting the beast preyed upon them.
A little bit larger of a creature, though that does not mean it’s jaws had to be stronger than Predator X’s.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Thanks for reminding me about megalodon, Sonnie — 80beats covered it back in August.
The megalodon researchers said it bit down with a force between 10.8 to 18.2 metric tons. The Predator X researchers estimate that their beastie had a bite force of about 15 metric tons (or as this blog post stated, 16.5 North American tons). So it looks like the two were in the same range, bite-wise.
March 19th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
And how does this fellow measure up with Liopleurodon, which presumably was a close relative of comparable size, also from the Jurassic (later than this one?)
March 21st, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“This one is more like it could crush a Hummer” – At last, a dinosaur that could cause the extinction of modern day dinosaurs – if only we could breed it to selectively kill of Porsche Cayennes, Hummers and the like we may stand a slim chance of surviving as a species ourselves
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
amphiox: Apparently, Predator X IS Liopleurodon.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Captain Quint Strongly is definitely going to need a bigger boat.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:45 am
is this the ultimate predator?