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Millions of year ago , as dinosaur giants were stamp around on acres , other giant reptiles were predominate the oceans — and some of them , like plesiosaur and standardized animals , grew extremely long , snake - similar necks .
Now , scientists have discovered how some of these early marine reptile evolve these lengthy necks rather speedily — by adding newfangled vertebra to their backbone .
Plesiosaurs gained new vertebrae to double their neck-length.
investigator inChinaand the U.K. examined the fogey of a marine reptile called a pachypleurosaur from the earlyTriassic period(251.9 to 201.3 million years ago ) , which kick off the start of the dinosaur era . This freshly discovered species , which they namedChusaurus xiangensis , had a neck about half as long as its torso .
Initially , the researchers were not sure whetherC. xiangensiswas a pachypleurosaur because its neck seemed too short — some of its relatives from later in the Triassic time period feature neck more than 80 % the duration of their trunk , the generator noted in the study , published on Aug. 31 in the journalBMC Ecology and Evolution . But despite its relatively short neck , the researcher determine that the fossil was indeed , a pachypleurosaur .
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To notice out how these animals developed super - long necks in super - quick metre , the research worker compared fogy of eosauropterygians — the group that includes pachypleurosaurs and other ancient , long - necked marine reptilian — from unlike period of the Triassic era .
They find that the ratio of the distance of their torsos to neck went from about 40 % to 90 % within roughly 5 million years .
After that , their necks quit growing longer quite as quickly . " They had presumptively turn over some kind of perfect neck opening distance for their mode of life,“Benjamin Moon , one of the newspaper publisher ’s atomic number 27 - generator and a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in the U.K. , tell in astatement .
" We think , as little marauder , they were probably mainly feeding on shrimps and little fish , so their ability to sneak up on a small shoal , and then hover in the water , darting their head after the fast - swimming prey was a great survival tool . "
These early long - necked beast also had few vertebra than some of their later relatives . " Chusaurusalready had 17 , whereas afterwards pachypleurosaur had 25,“Long Cheng , one of the subject area ’s co - authors and a paleontologist at the Wuhan Centre of China Geological Survey , tell in the statement .
" Some Late Cretaceous plesiosaur [ 100 million to 66 million long time ago ] such asElasmosauruseven had 72 , and its neck was five times the length of its proboscis , " Cheng add . " With so many vertebrae , these longsighted necks must have been super - snakey and they presumably whipped the neck around to take hold of fishy prey while keeping the body steady . "
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This speedy phylogeny of long neck early in the Triassic flow was likely due to the mass defunctness — dubbed the Great Dying — that antedate it . " The oddment - Permian sight extinction had been the biggest passel extinguishing of all time and only one in twenty species come through , " study co - authorMichael Benton , also a paleontologist at the University of Bristol , read in the statement . " The Early Triassic was a time of recoveryand marine reptiles evolved very fast at that time , most of them predators on the prawn , fishes and other sea creatures .
" They had initiate right after the experimental extinction , so we know their rate of change were super speedy in the raw world after the crisis . "
