Ancient 'dragon' unearthed in Japan | Hacker News Reader

Ancient 'dragon' unearthed in Japan

sciencealert.com

28 pointsBrajeshwar12 comments

That is weird looking, a cross between the body plan of a mosasaur and an ichthyosaur. It’s funny that the article talks about how mysterious this creature is and how it didn’t swim like a plesiosaur- but makes no mention of the ichthyosaurs it clearly resembles.

Large predatory sea creatures often end up with streamlined body plans with a dorsal fin. Sharks, dolphins, ichthyosaurs… makes sense that some faster mosasaurs would evolve in that direction too. 72mya is fairly late in the game during the Cretaceous period.

It's a type of water mammal like dolphins.

The second paragraph of the article says they are lizards; specifically calling out it is not a mammal.

  the colossal air-breathing creature wasn't a mammal despite its warm-blood. Nor was it a crocodile despite its similar shaped head. Instead it belonged to a group of now extinct marine lizards

I was interested in the claim that it is warm-blooded (based on your quote). I went to the article and the link associated with the term 'warm-blooded' leads to an article that makes absolutely no mention of warm-bloodedness or thermoregulation. As such, I'm not going to put much faith in the article.

Here is the possible source of that claim https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pala.12240

It seems it is not a matter of settled science however at least from skimming that paper. Not any kind of palaeontologist but I do like dinosaurs like any sensible person.

I like how you guys are debating the source material which is about 90% advertisements. It’s all garbage, content included.

The article specifically states it’s not a mammal. It has been classified as a mosasaur.

Jurassic World movie fans may be familiar with mosasaur.

> Jurassic World movie fans may be familiar with mosasaur.

Jurassic World fans and parents of 3 year old boys

Yeah, but at 6m a mini Mosasaur, since some could grow to 17m.

There was also a very recent UK find of a large Pliosaur (Plesiosaur), which coexisted with Mosasaurs, and at 10m might have eaten this Japanese one for lunch.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67650247

That was a pliosaur in the movie, not a mosasaur.

They refer to it as a mosasaur[1] in the movie, take it up with them?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_World#Plot (or watch)

In the grand old tradition of Jurassic Park "velociraptors".

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