Bus-Size Sea Monster!

Posted by NG Kids in News Bites on January 9, 2013
An ichthyosaurus
Art by Raul Martin. © 2013 National Geographic Magazine.

Paleontologists in Nevada have discovered a Triassic-era sea monster that is the size of a bus! It lived about 244 million years ago during the Triassic era. The creature is called “lizard-eating sovereign of the seas,” or Thalattoarchon saurophagis. T. saurophagis was an early ichthyosaur, a giant reptile that lived in the oceans.

The fossil was partially excavated in 1998, and National Geographic explorer and T. saurophagis study co-author Nadia Fröbisch and her colleagues excavated the rest of the fossil in 2010. The complete fossil has a huge skull and big, sharp teeth that may have been used to eat prey the same size as T. saurophagis.

Learn more about Thalattoarchon saurophagis on National Geographic News.

How much do you know about the sea monsters of the past? Find out with this Brainteaser on National Geographic Kids.

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Comments

  1. lioncub
    January 10, 7:11 am

    I love underwater creatures and animals from the Jurassic period! in 2006 i swam with pink dolphins who are pink on one side but grey on the other! That was in Singapore where new born butterflies are the size of a jellyfish! I can’t imagine what their cocoon size is! I have heard that Pterodactyls were very fast in grabbing fish out of the water and females would eat them and then later regurgitate it for their babies! Pretty disgusting!

  2. pielover
    January 10, 2:21 pm

    wow! its the size of a bus thats big!

  3. flipflop02
    January 12, 7:18 am

    cool that sea creature is gigantic

  4. Hermione
    January 26, 8:44 pm

    That is so so so cool!!! It is freaky to think of SUCH BIG BIG BIG animals!

  5. jasmine1194
    January 28, 8:21 am

    What is that,it’s really unbelievelible

  6. lalasel
    February 2, 8:55 pm

    whoa! just look at the height of this sea monster!

  7. chinni008
    February 3, 10:22 am

    are they really from 0.5 to 0.2 millon years ago

  8. EJ :)
    February 7, 11:26 pm

    yeah

    So cool right~~ ^^

  9. anthony2115
    March 8, 9:45 am

    oh this information is better interesing

  10. savetheoceans123
    April 2, 5:15 pm

    That is totally awesome!Anyone here has NG kids magazine?!? I do! :)

  11. savetheoceans123
    April 2, 5:15 pm

    I love animal and is devoted to save the many endangered animals of the Ocean..I like to cap. Ocean
    beacause in my way,it is a proper noun. ;)

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