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How to:

hunt like Shonisaurus

Move your

tongue upward to push any water out of your mouth. Now gulp down your prey whole. Yum!

V I ■ Dive deep using sight (and perhaps smell) to track down sguid and fish to eat.

Open your mouth to create suction. Snap your jaws shut once the fish have been sucked in.

Changing

appearances

>1^ At first, ichtłryosaurs were thougłit to be straight-talled, like crocodiles. Paleontologists thought that the bent taił had been accidentally broken.

>1^ Later finds showed that

advanced ichthyosaurs were shark-shaped animals with dorsal fins and forked tails.

Ribs: Of solid bonę may have helped weigh the animal down in the water

Brain: Housed inside the skuli was smali, but with large regions devoted to sight and touch

Huge eyes:

Gave good vision in deep, dark water

A couple of experts have suggested that ichthyosaurs used their front fins to “fly” underwater, like penguins. However, this idea is not widely accepted.

Sharp teeth:

Grasped fish

Streamiined jaw:

Helped the ichthyosaur cut through the water

Stornach contents

Show that

ichthyosaurs.

Front paddles:

Powered the animal through the water

Nostrils: Were used for breathing and perhaps for smelling prey

Teeth and diet

The Triassic ichthyosaur Tholodus had several rows of rounded teeth set at the back of its jaws. It used them to crush mussellike shellfish.

Injuries and oddities

Ichthyosaur menu

Shellfish

Belemnites (extinct squidlike creatures)

Turtles

+ Healed injuries seen on shoulder girdles might have resulted from rapid braking or painful collisions.

+ ln some ichthyosaur specimens, one front paddle is longer than the other. No one knows why.

+ Sometimes ichthyosaur nostrils are asymmetrical—different to each other in shape and size.

+ Bite marks on some ichthyosaur bones show that they were preyed on by other marinę reptiles.

+ Fractured ribs seen in some ichthyosaurs suggest that some species fought by ramming each other’s bodies.

The early ichthyosaur V* ¹ Himalayasaurus had unique large, bladelike teeth, which may have been used to catch large creatures.

Temnodontosaurus Y* ¹ eurycephalus was a large ichthyosaur very like a killer whaie.

It had deep jaws and massive teeth.

,^00^ Leptonectoids were

ichthyosaurs that looked like swordfish. They had slender paddles and very long upper jaws. They probably chased belemnites, squid, and smali fish.

Platypterygius from the Cretaceous ate whatever it could catch. Fossiliized stornach contents have included turtles, sea birds, and fish.

Ichthyosaurs

(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. Ali Rights Reserved.