These Are The Coolest Fossils From 2023

It's that time of year where we round up all our favorite science discoveries of the year, and today, we're talking fossils. From a wild mosasaur with screwdriver teeth, to glittery gold fossils, and even a mammal-versus-reptile fight to the death that ended with a volcanic eruption, let's chat about all the sickest fossils from 2023.
Hosted by: Reid Reimers
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References:
link.springer.com/article/10....
www.eurekalert.org/news-relea...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Long neck
www.cell.com/current-biology/...
www.eurekalert.org/news-relea...
www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
Dinocephalia
academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073...
www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
www.eurekalert.org/news-relea...
Larynx
www.nature.com/articles/s4200...
phys.org/news/2023-02-larynx-...
IMAGES
www.gettyimages.com
link.springer.com/article/10....
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2023/...
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ti...
www.nature.com/articles/s4200...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lo...
journals.plos.org/plosone/art...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ta...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
www.eurekalert.org/multimedia...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:He...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

[@Roope00]

Odd, usually we have fossils from millions of years ago!

[@princesslava15]

Bwomp bwAaamp.

[@Kloxbyn]

You've been a great crowd! I'll be here all week.

[@Iamrightyouarewrong]

Can you gargle peanut-butter?

[@TheoFizylkl]

Bleet bleet bleet bleet bleet bleetThat's all folks!

[@Kuro-mg8vc]

🦗🦗🦗

[@therongjr]

I was disappointed that you didn't elaborate what kind of dinosaur and mammal were locked in mortal combat in the last segment. (They were a psittacosaurid and gobiconodontid, by the way!)

[@dawnorem189]

I'm curious how they decided they were fighting and the little mammal wasn't just eating an already dead/dying dino.

[@dasstigma]

II am also disappointed that you did not say how tall I am at the end of your comment. (It's 182cm by the way).

[@blakake]

I was disappointed when I thought "there's a chance my son might be this much of a try hard" but I doubt it.

[@neilcook4710]

I'm doubting the authenticity of the Chinese fossil. Just a hunch.

[@dasstigma]

@@neilcook4710 Yes, because China. China is not the US, so it must be lying. Because the US never lies. I got you! You are definitely not racist! Correct?

[@vectorwolf]

Regarding the mosasaur... when you see that kind of star shaped cross section in medieval weaponry, it's something intended specifically to pierce mail or plate armor. I think this speaks to a predator with a diet comprised of prey with heavy scales or bony plating, rather than an actual shell. I know there are plenty of armored fish in the record, so I'd look for those in the same strata as your mosasaur.

[@jabbrewoki]

I like how you think, and I like your name.

[@NinaDmytraczenko]

Ha! And my mom used to say LARPing would never be a useful skill 😂😂😂😂

[@GinHindew110]

armored fish havent really made it big ever since, so its very probable

[@MaFritz101]

Besides armored fish, add sharks with thick shark skin

[@jabbrewoki]

@@MaFritz101 piercing skulls as well

[@AmericanMeiling]

Imagining a big beast like a dinosaur warbling like a bird just made me so giddy 😹😹😹 It literally surprises me ... Little things are really the best

[@robmann400]

Screwdriver Toothed Mosasaurs used their unique teeth to pick up small cubes of ice which they needed whenever feeding because their diet mainly consisted of vodka and orange juice. You’re welcome!

[@meg2831]

Makes sense to me

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

Can we call that screwdriver toothed mosasaur Ikeasaurus in honor of the furniture they (almost certainly) did not assemble? Edit: Shoutout to @kayleighlehrman9566, who in a reply to this comment came up with an even more appropriate name, Ikeadont.

[@mandelbraught2728]

Maybe it evolved for exactly this purpose, since our species apparently isn't evolved enough to assemble them.😉

[@kayleighlehrman9566]

Or maybe Ikeadont, to specifically mention the teeth

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

@@kayleighlehrman9566 Ooo. Even better, yes. There could even be multiple species in the genus, for hex wrenches, etc.

[@KOKO-uu7yd]

LOVE IT!👍👍

[@AileTheAlien]

@@kayleighlehrman9566 triple-win - it sounds like "Ikea don't" because it's not assembling anything! 😆

[@outistynnanyt5153]

My thought for the "screwdriver teeth" is that maybe it was used as a wedge? Not for hard-bodied organisms, but maybe "tough bodied" that could have benefited from being split apart, but not shredded???

[@areallyshortbrontothere]

As a fossilized animal, I approve this list

[@sharendonnelly7770]

Phillips head tooth structure in the mosasaur appears to be a combination adaptation of crushing and gripping. Perhaps there existed an organism, like a nautilus or ammonite, that had a relatively light shell yet chewy center? The specialized tooth structure could have allowed the mosasaur to chomp into the shell and dispatch it while gripping the meaty portion to consume. My humble thoughts only, hoping to see other ideas on this one.

[@WhatIsSanity]

I was thing that or they bit into and shredded some sort of large leafy seaweed. The unusual shape would provide quite a bit of traction and shearing ability once the tips had already punctured, granted this would require the mosasaur to shake its head back and forth like a shark or crocodilian.

[@Shadowpup6]

Me hearing about a fossil found in 2005: "Oh that was a couple years ago." Reid: "NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO." Me: WTF

[@fezii9043]

Haha boomer (I'm only making fun of you since I'm a Gen Z kid trying to forget the inevitable march of time slowly overtaking my existence to eventually wipe out all that I am or ever have been)

[@FACTION141]

So you’re telling me that it is technically possible that the ankylosaurus could’ve had human like speech similar to that of a parrot

[@smurfyday]

I mean, most birds can do fancy vocals compared to other animals, so it only stands to reason that their common ancestor, the non-avian dinos, could have done the same

[@werty8472]

That screwdriver shape is a spudger. It's a shape used to separate two hard parts which are held together with interlocking or adhesive pull.

[@carmensmithaguirre3049]

So they would've eaten clams or oysters or something?

[@darcieclements4880]

I was thinking something specialized for eating a particular mollusk myself. I'm actually looking at a extant animal that has teeth that if you take them away from the jaw or not especially outstanding but when they're in the jaw they form a structure almost identical to a pruning saw which is a type of saw that slices out a little thin section in the middle to avoid getting bound. When I watch these animals feed I see them using their teeth as a saw to sever the spine of prey and I believe they may be the only ones that do something like this currently. So it's absolutely possible for animals to have really unusual and specific dentition evolve that isn't seen elsewhere. What makes my particular animal especially outstanding is it does this because it's a snake and has no way of gripping and tearing apart food, except for this species which is developed these crazy teeth that let them do that.

[@stax6092]

Man, I love Ankylosaurus. But I gotta say the most Epic fight to me is the fossil find in Jurassic Fight-Club between an Ankylosaur-type-dinosaur(Gastro-Something) and Utah Raptor. Real cool. Go little mammal though.

[@Casio718]

That sounds like Raptor Red and there's a book about jer called Raptor Red. It's about the life of a female Utahraptor.

[@Glunked]

Gastonia?

[@stax6092]

@@Glunked That's the one. It had been so long the name had escaped me. Thank you.

[@nathanlevesque7812]

best dino

[@Glunked]

@@stax6092 no problem

[@jdranetz]

The dino against the mammal may have had a hinderence of cold, and was attacked while sleeping. Repiles have more primative ears, too. It snuck up on it.

[@ravenwolf7128]

Love the fossils! Hope they get to reconstruct some dino calls and create a more realistic immersive experience visuals matched with sounds--a whole chorus from various parts of the Mesozoic. Wish we could glimpse through a time machine....

[@magnusbjarni]

Ive wondered how the past sounded like and imagine if the air was flush with stunning and beautiful sounds that could rip your ear drums from up close. The immensely deep songs of the bigger animals and the shorter, higher pitches from the small reptiles. Instead of roars, there would be songs that struck fear and others that made you feel safe. And they would stop as some invisible threat came near so the silence would be deafening and terrifying

[@Beryllahawk]

That was also my first thought. If the fossil is complete enough for them to create a model, maybe they can make some noise! I think they tried this in the late 1980s with parasaurolophus fossils - someone made models of the crest bones. I don't remember anymore if that was purely speculative, but that segment was among a wave of dinosaur related "isn't this nifty" that swamped the TV channels right after the first Jurassic Park flick came out.

[@AngryKittens]

An ancient angry kitten fighting a dragon to the death, while in the background, a volcano is exploding. **cue metal music**

[@ThirtytwoJ]

Soooo neadertal dinner date, netflix and chill where you scavenge the loser.

[@rickseiden1]

I'm asking this out of ignorance, and not to challenge people who know a lot more than I do. How do they know that the three mosasaur teeth they found represent a new species? Could it be a known species of mosasaur with some sort of genetic defect?

[@user-et2dx5du7e]

the chances of such great genetic defect is smaller than that of a new species getting fossilized

[@caseyleichter2309]

I wonder the same thing! That's one of the problems with fossils: it's hard to tell if a strange one is a genuinely different species/breed, or if it's a one-off due to deformity. Unless they find more, there's no way to tell for sure. (If the critter was mature, or even old, then we can hazard a guess that even if the phillips-head teeth were a deformity, they was still functional enough for the critter to be able to eat...and, possibly pass the trait on to their offspring.)

[@eseguerito2629]

Lomg story short, most animals that die will never be fossilized in the first place because it only happens under very specific circumstances. So, when one is discovered, it’s a safer bet to assume that it’s a completely ordinary and average specimen of it’s particular species.

[@MontgomeryWenis]

I'm wondering how they even identified it as a mosasaur when all they found were teeth that have never been seen in any animal ever.

[@outistynnanyt5153]

​@@eseguerito2629 this makes a lot of sense, but i still wonder: is there a way to rule that out? Or is it just "statistically this is probably 'normal,' so we should treat it like it is"?

[@6pin66]

With the Mammal vs Dino fight.........umm punching above their weight is a well established Mammal thing . Ever hear of Mustelids ?!?! I bet a Fisher could mess a small dino up REAL good . By small , I mean.....not a Sauropod :P

[@pluspiping]

Agreed. Badger vibes, indeed.

[@elihyland4781]

That thumbnail deserves to be preserved for future generations

[@BallisticDamages]

Just got back from my local disused quarry and found some nice vancouverensis fossils. Still hoping to find a nice Ammonite or something. Wish I could find something even 1/100th as awesome as these fossils though haha

[@joeh2236]

When I was a kid in the late 80's, early 90's one of my dads friends was a paleontologist and he gave me some plesiosaur teeth. I thought that was the coolest thing. Not that you care, just wanted to share. Hope you find what your looking for!

[@BallisticDamages]

@@joeh2236 you're quite wrong my friend! I do care! That sounds awesome 😎

[@blackkittycat15]

That last one has to be the ancestor of the chihuahua.

[@smurfyday]

Sounds like you've never seen that viral video about honey badgers

[@ponyote]

Screwdriver teeth could really do a number on soft tissue, maybe with a thin shell or thick hide? Just my two cents.

[@uningenieromas]

11:18 That fight would have 'Duel of Fates' in the background.

[@gabrielalejandrodoldan4722]

Batalla de los héroes en realidad, literalmente estaban peleando en un lugar parecido a Mustafar

[@Nala15-Artist]

The discoveries like the preserved larynx is such a help into further completing the picture of what life in the time of dinosaurs was like. It drives me nuts how some old-guard paleontologists keep spouting the myth the dinosaur age was quiet solely because we haven't found a voicebox yet! Come on, use some common sense. If you think the dinosaur age was quiet then you also have to presume that pack and herd-behavior didn't happen (which your data shows it did) because vocal communication is KEY for that! And now... we have some good proof. ;) (for something that was obvious ...)

[@ixiairisborne1695]

screwdriver teeth suggestion: speed + strength. By having the footprint of a larger tooth, it would have nearly the same strength as if it were round, at the major diameter. By having the troughs in the teeth, they'd be lighter than they'd be at the major diameter. So, my theory would be that this meant the mosasaur could snap its jaws closed either with less energy needed or with greater speed, penetrating bones, scales, dermal plating, etc with greater ease or with deeper penetration.

[@Aaa-dv3oi]

That battle will last forever and that’s beautiful to me

[@poonoi1968]

If you're not already, you should marry 😂

[@timmorton8918]

If the Ankylosaurus had a larynx similar to a birds, do you think they would have been able to mimic sounds!? And how terrifying do you think that would be if you went back in time and thought you heard someone talking but it was a f****** Ankylosaurus

[@gobblinal]

I have always wanted T.Rex to crow like a rooster and it would be wonderful to think of forests full of dinosaurs all twittering back and forth.

[@lauracronbungusman1582]

This is the first ever discovered reptilian dinosaur larynx, I think it’s more favorable to assume many dinosaurs had this bird-like structure. maybe the world used to be filled with beautiful bellowing calls from dinosaurs. To add to your point, maybe dinosaurs could specialize in mimicking prey’s calls, causing prey to find them first.

[@chr.s]

Best thumbnail 10/10. Give the designer a high five from me please

[@areallyshortbrontothere]

Agreed

[@josephdonais4778]

Mosasaur teeth, a pyramid of blades. Mom's failed experiment at maximizing the phase and cutting surface area, "Being on the cutting edge"... of evolution? I dream of being chased by bears. Being chased by a toothy dino...? I do believe "terror, pain and death" and terror, pain and death mean the same thing. Who the hell wants nuances?

[@protocetid]

wow 2023 truly was a golden year for fossil discoveries!

[@hamentaschen]

"I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers."

[@germanomagnone]

It is nice to think that the larynx of the Pinacosaurus which was similar to that of the birds as the ear bones, would perhaps have been the tenor "lucianosaurus Pinacotti" (parody of the name of the famous Italian tenor: Luciano Pavarotti)

[@pluspiping]

Of all the funky ways for things to fossilize, I was very surprised the 'golden' fossils weren't pyrite! What a curious petri dish of a planet we live on, with such varied chemical reactions to happen that might not happen anywhere else in the universe.

[@akeleven]

Regarding all the teeth configurations: nobody talks about how the tongue functions to get that food down the gullet.

[@EmyN]

Oh! Just missed the new found Pliosaur head! One of the most complete specimens of it’s type, and maybe we can find the rest of the body too

[@dennis_mihaylov]

that is a very interesting video!

[@lesleyghostdragon3149]

"...a face only a mother could love, or, maybe, a utensil drawer...?" LOL Give that writer a bonus! Anthropomorphisation of a utensil drawer 😂...🤔...😨...uh oh...it was funny until I envisioned the next time I open and reach into my potentially sentient utensil drawer...

[@boopbiffsnose]

I love discoveries that come from reexamining already known fossils.

[@cottonO3]

"The neck is the part that holds the.. head, on,..." -funny guy in Vaca shirt😂😊

[@GhostNinja0007]

Still doesn't feel real to me, but im gonna be 21 in 5 days on Dec, 31. Hope everyone had a great holidays, and on to have a good New Year

[@apocalypse487]

It just feels like another day 😂

[@poonoi1968]

Tips hat and smile to GhostNinja person.👴

[@GhostNinja0007]

@@apocalypse487 You're not wrong🤣

[@boogiesinger]

Hi, marine biologist,biochemist and paleontology enthusiast (amateur) here. I was wondering a lot about the unusual teeth of the mosasaurus and it seems like the structure could be useful for grazing rocks and hard surfaces for conches or something that sticks hard on these surfaces. Imagine what tool someone would use to remove a conch from a rock, after the obvious flat knife breaks a few times... Also, is it possible that the mammal and the dino were just embracing hard, since they were surrounded by devastating lava? An imminent destruction could create a brief unlikely friendship like that.

[@blackbird7889]

I like the thought that dinosaurs might've been able to sing like birds

[@darkonyx6995]

It all depends on the species, Hadrosaur dinosaurs, which are the dinosaurs we have the best data on sounds, would have sounded like trumpets, Parasaurolophus in specific would have sounded very similar to a train horn and a Tripod from War of the Worlds. Also, Tyrannosaurus likely would have made low but intense humming noises, which would be felt by your bones rather than heard by your ears!

[@ashtree3023]

3:23 for the Mososaur question: Perhaps ice breaking mososaurs who liked some kind of ice-inhabiting thing? Idk.

[@mcv2178]

The mosasaur that could have saved the Titanic!

[@angelitabecerra]

3:16 Maybe the screwdriver Mosasaur was eating fleshy prey that buried itself in the sediments of the seabed 🤔 The serrations on the side of the grooves and the grooves themselves would help the animal capture and hold onto its prey. And the sediments of the seabed would be responsible for wearing the teeth down 🤔 If the prey items were large-ish, that would explain why this animal evolved these teeth over say baileen

[@tagAught]

Re mosasaur teeth: honestly, I'm thinking some kind of cephalopod. Not for any specific reason relating to the shape of the teeth, necessarily, but because I could see that producing a certain amount of wear on the teeth (blunting them against internal shell structures? can't remember the details of cephalopods in the Cretaceous, sorry), while at the same time not breaking because the actual *meat* of the body is all soft tissue.

[@ericdavis7779]

I would suggest the teeth are arranged to inflict a wound that would fester and bleed terribly thereby allowing them to track and find the prey or while still not catching at least mortally wounding

[@Lurkily_Esh]

Since the screw shape seems common in herbivores, maybe it started there. But since it also resembles a wood saw . . . maybe this was a herbivore that ground through tougher woods with a side-to-side chew? Given the success of beaver teeth, that seems unlikely, but, you know, it DOES seem to be a vanished branch of tooth-evolution, so maybe that's why. Maybe a scavenger that got some essential nutrients from bones other creatures discarded? Maybe it preyed on something slippery enough to need grippy points, but plants comprised enough of its diet to keep the flat herbivore tooth. Too many possibilities, not enough informattion.

[@takenname8053]

Should have joined in PaleoRewind

[@anarchyantz1564]

"They failed to notice the wave of ash and debris heading their way". Dude, if a pyroclastic flow is heading their way, running would not have been an option.

[@kadeadams2308]

Ah, a new year :))))

[@SMunro]

Dinosaur has voicebox capable of complex Sounds. Dino: Do my eys decieve me? What Do I see in the sky? It looms above Like a predator. And like a predator it falls on its Prey.

[@thisperson9758]

I love this guy

[@bhami]

5:37 Instead of clip art of lions, how about showing us an artist's concept of an actual Titanophoneus? Web search, including Wikipedia, shows dozens.

[@scottbender9056]

The pterosaur with the straining teeth could also have had an expandable lower mouth or neck like a pelican or humpback whale to increase the volume of water it could capture to strain.

[@lauracronbungusman1582]

I agree this would be quite advantageous for that species. I wonder if paleontologists listen to speculative zoology from the public, we all seem to have great ideas to share!

[@samhodge7460]

I really like this host!

[@BaldingClamydia]

5:10 is that a firefly reference? :D

[@wombat.6652]

2 The Screwdriver toothed Mosasaur: Could that have been a mutation in a single animal ?

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

That would make for a very weird dawn chorus.

[@onyxianna]

Bahahaha!!! Two and BIT teeth were found!! It would be cool to see a crosshead tooth!

[@scottnunnemaker5209]

Would you say snakes have incredibly long necks? Like those massive boas and anacondas?

[@111jkjk]

i just ❤❤❤ that thumbnail

[@joe-skeen]

I always knew those songs from Land Before Time were really of prehistoric origin! 😂

[@fishybusinessco.8398]

Bro, I am so glad we have no living creature to compare it to

[@131scavy]

Serrated and pointed teeth like that suggest they were used against something that was air breathing and potentially the hunting involved drowning or otherwise pinning their prey underwater. Hunting early pterosaurs, other early avians, wading animals and semi-aquatic species by grabbing and drowning their prey would be a way to use serrated teeth since the mosasaur didn't use its limbs in conjunction with it's mouth.

[@LiviaIndica]

No plants or fungi?

[@hydrashade1851]

two theories for the screwdriver toothed mosasaur that arent based on anything but worldbuilding brain: maybe it ate bones, or filter feeders stuck to rocks like sponges? maybe it scavenged?

[@Albinojackrussel]

Might be mid head phones, but im almost exclusively getting audio on the left channel, and just the odd cutting in and out on the right. I seem to be fine with other audio, but my headpohones are a bit glitchy, so might just be them.

[@BenBrooksShards]

I found the audio level was moderately biased towards the left channel on my desktop with stereo speakers. I didn't get any cutting in and out like you did but perhaps your headphones have a volume threshold where they cut out when below that level. I ended up having to turn on "mono audio" (Windows sound setting) as the balance was too distracting.

[@stephentomsky9576]

I need art of the most metal battle creatures inserted into the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight of Star Wars III.

[@jdranetz]

Maybe the Mosasaur grabbed cepholapods. Also, have any Torx teeth showed up?

[@deanaderrick3474]

So fun

[@SpawnDucky]

That last fossil was pretty metal. 🤘

[@germanomagnone]

perhaps when he was alive he was a fanatic of rock music

[@scriptorpaulina]

Objection! Birds don’t have larynxes, they have syrinxes.

[@strixalu]

Regarding the ankylosaur larynx... that fossil was of Pinacosaurus, a dinosaur that lived during the late Cretaceous around 81-75 million years ago. Birds, however, are around 150 million years old, so referring to pinacosaurus as an older relative of the birds is misleading. Birds and ankylosaurs lived along side one another, as very distant cousins. Basically my main point is that ankylosaurs are not an "older" relative of birds because birds evolved first.

[@zuglymonster]

The picture in the thumbnail was so cute

[@MusicWithJustin]

1:15 Brennan Lee Mulligan is not gonna be happy about that one

[@suzettehenderson9278]

I would have thought they would include that pliosaur from Devon.

[@johnquestel4852]

So dinos sang!

[@jameseddleman6944]

Some kind of soft shelled thing? maybe it was the type to make its prey bleed out? that is really cool looking teeth though.

[@chocolatefrenzieya]

Most terrifying teeth ever!

[@alexisrux2223]

With the screw driver teeth thing could that have been useful for shellfish take a look at the crabeater seal teeth there weird as heck seen nowhere else and are for a vary specific diet and style of eating

[@tedbomba6631]

My guess is that the mosasaur usually dined on spirochetes . . .

[@kevincronk7981]

Who says there was no mososaur IKEA? Were you there?

[@Helveteshit]

Mosasaur, Hippo. Sounds like they both have might have the same diet.

[@richardpaxford5792]

"Strong Badger Vibes!"

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

Have a cool yule, y'all!

[@gabormolnar2208]

So wait, the gold colored "pyritized" fossils from that german locality are not pyrite or even marcasite, but phosfates? What kind of minerals are they?

[@Deletedcommentfactory]

More like an armadillo on the ooze that Super Shredder got into.

[@chrism3784]

I cannot find a video about this anywhere, but can you do video about the possibility of all of Earth's Oxygen being consumed, if it is even possible.

[@poonoi1968]

just breathe slowly...

[@neithermanc1]

dinosaurs could have evolved language! disney got this right with earl sinclair and fam.

[@lightbeingform]

That's how my cat wakes me up in the morning

[@Rendertk1]

I am inclined to disbelieve that the dino and mammal fight is actually a fight at all. As mentioned the mammal is a bit out of its weight class, but also it's paw is in the mouth of the dino, which is a good way to lose your toes even a herbivore can probably be expected to be capable of biting them off. Sadly I think it more likely that the mammal is an omnivorous generalist given its physique and the general niches occupied by mammals at the time (with some exceptions). It is likely scavenging a carcass imo, maybe the dino succumbed to the volcano first or maybe it died for another reason. The handholds of the mammal are probably just it getting perchase and leverage to pull the carcass apart. It seems far more likely that such an event would be fossilised than mid-combat too. Not saying that the combat explanation isn't possible for those who want to hold out hope, but you seem to be riding the edge of occam's razor. Edit: Have just read the associated paper, they do seem to demonstrate that the size difference (within 95% confidence interval of log-log predator mass to maximum prey mass) is not unreasonable, though it should be noted that this is the maximum prey mass and they themselves state it as "We therefore cannot reject the hypothesis that this association preserves a doomed predation event on the part of the mammal, despite its smaller size." This to me feels accurate, they have demonstrated that it can't be immediately outright rejected. That being said they have not demonstrated that this is predation and I think the null hypothesis should probably be scavenging. They use an analogue to african wild dogs hunting behaviour which could make sense of the behaviour if correct. However this should be a point for further exploration, if kleptoparistism was a regular occurence one should expect the frequency of kleptoparasitised fossil bones to be greater than the frequency of a mid-predation event, so other P. lujiatunensis fossils should be cross-referenced for signs of kleptoparasitism (teeth marks from both R. robustus and a theropod), they make no mention of this cross-referencing having occurred that I can see. I think the authors have mildly sensationalised this by leaving this an open possibility and not doing enough to substantiate their claims, and then unfortunately in distilling here what was initially a tentative proposal to be explored further has been presented as fact.

[@BooboosANDBloodshed_95]

This is amazing. The host looks a bit like Tyson Fury.

[@diebesgrab]

When did we decide Tanystropheus was marine? Last I heard we were leaning semi-aquatic.

[@charlottegrace6656]

Off topic, but I wonder where Reid got his hei matau (the stylised fish hook pendant)

[@tuwcouz]

How do people keep up to date with this stuff I'd love to know more but Sci show is my only source of information for any form of science

[@MontgomeryWenis]

How did they identify that a tooth shape that's never been seen in any animal ever found came from a mosasaur when all that was found were a couple teeth?

[@DJFracus]

Part of its jaw was found as well, not just teeth.

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

The fossil record is so fragmentary that paleontologists have, by necessity, gotten very good at identifying at least higher-rank taxonomy from very small pieces.

[@MontgomeryWenis]

@@DJFracus Ahhh okay. I guess I missed that.

[@MontgomeryWenis]

@@littlesnowflakepunk855 Right, I understand that much. But if its shape has never been seen in any animal, past or present, wouldn't that exponentially broaden the possibilities? Okay, they found three never before seen teeth and a jaw bone that resembles that of a mosasaur. That's not confirmation that it belonged to a mosasaur. It's confirmation that something that lived around the same time and place as mosasaurs and had a jaw that we think resembles that of a mosasaur, but ate something completely different and was well adapted to eating that. Birds and baby crocodiles have similar skulls. Convergent evolution is plentiful in the fossil record, especially after mass extinction events, like when mosasaurs evolved to fill their niches.

[@Takashikuubo]

Idk a 10t chirping t rex sounds more scary than one that roars

[@Zappygunshot]

Is it not possible that the dinosaur fell on top of the mammal from some powerful force, say, the high winds and hurtling boulders in a pyroclastic flow; and the mammal spent its last seconds pinned, desperately trying to claw and bite its way out?

[@chloesibilla8199]

Do we know what bit the long neck?

[@RickySTT]

The past 365 days? By my count, there have been only 360 days in the year so far.