Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure Page #2

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but not in the same league

as its larger relative...

the creature the Sternbergs had found.

Few ocean predators ever would compare

with the beast they were uncovering.

Think I've got some tail vertebrae

over here.

Could be lower limb bones.

Part of a paddle.

Skull here.

Paddle there.

Tail vertebra over there.

This fella could be giant-sized.

[Narrator]

It was a giant with no enemy...

a great reptile called Tylosaurus...

one of the largest and most ferocious

creatures of any age.

A fossil of a closely related beast

tells us more.

[Speaking Hebrew]

Its eyes were as big as grapefruits.

Cone-shaped teeth filled its jaws...

and the roof of its mouth

perfect for seizing prey.

The tylosaurs were out there...

but there were other predators

more easily spotted.

As fish go, Xiphactinus was gigantic...

up to 17 feet long.

More than twice the size

of the little female dolly...

it was a hunter

that could kill quickly...

and this day one did.

## [Radio:
Country]

We know what happened from a fossil

excavated in the badlands of Kansas...

by Charles Sternberg's son George.

Mr. Sternberg?

I called from the newspaper.

There's a lot of talk about

what you found out here.

- Glad you could come.

- Well, thank you.

- Caught a pretty big fish here.

- What is it, exactly?

This is a 13-foot Xiphactinus.

But there's more to it.

As I went through

digging out the fossil...

I noticed something beneath the ribs.

I found some vertebrae,

kept on going.

Turned out to be

an entire animal inside.

The victim was a six-foot fish

called a Gillicus-

such a mouthful that swallowing it

killed the Xiphactinus...

a prehistoric victim of gluttony.

[Water Splashing]

Weeks pass, and the dollies

are now far from any shore-

venturing into a sea

turned magical by night.

Microscopic plankton

give off an eerie glow.

Under cover of darkness,

the Enchodus rest...

not quite sleeping.

Below, there's a mass spawning

of straight-shelled ammonites.

The dollies keep their eyes

trained for predators.

And one is about

to change their lives.

[Man]

There's hundreds of sharks' teeth here.

[Narrator]

After a long day hunting fossils...

two amateur collectors

unearthed a wealth of sharks' teeth.

So many have been found

around the world...

that it's clear sharks were thriving

during the age of the sea monsters.

The Cretoxyrhina

is as big and lethal...

as the Great White of our day.

It slices its victims into bite-size chunks,

using razor-sharp teeth.

[Whirring, Clicking]

[Speaking Dutch]

[Narrator]

There is evidence from a Dutch quarry...

that ancient sharks fed

on even the largest marine reptiles...

leaving tooth marks on their bones.

The female and her brother

are being watched.

But it's their mother

who becomes the target.

[Squealing]

Their mother is gone,

but it isn't over.

A smaller shark

goes after the young female.

She's wounded...

but she survives the initial charge.

Perhaps the shark was not as lucky.

Her injury will heal...

though she'll always carry a shark's tooth

embedded in her flipper.

The two youngsters

must now continue on their own.

If the female and her brother

are going to survive...

they'll have to find food

and their way...

in this vast inland sea.

Finally, they see something familiar-

a school of Enchodus

trailed by other dollies...

and by the flightless Hesperornis.

[Squawks]

But nearly anything in the sea-

can be a meal for a tylosaur.

[Man]

This one died with a full stomach.

Yeah, it looks like a, uh' Hesperornis.

Big as a pelican.

Maybe bigger.

[Narrator]

The stomach contents of a single tylosaur...

reveal its enormous appetite.

This looks like the bone

of a three-to-five foot long teleost fish.

Got a bone here

from a small mosasaur.

Probably the size of an alligator.

And it seems like

he swallowed a shark.

Big eater, this guy.

[Narrator]

For several weeks, the travelers push on.

The female's flipper is slowly healing...

the embedded tooth

now surrounded my scar tissue.

The young female is drawn away

by a potential meal of squid.

One escapes among

a colony of crinoids-

prehistoric relatives of sea stars-

perhaps swept up from the bottom

by currents.

The female has put herself

directly in the sights of a giant.

Taking the exposed parts

of the skeleton together-

skull to tail- I make the specimen

about a 29-footer.

Yeah.

There's something in the stomach.

[Narrator]

They had found the monster's last meal...

entombed within its ribs.

Because dollies are fast...

a tylosaur's best bet

is to catch one by surprise.

[Hissing, Roaring]

The female escapes.

But her brother doesn't see

the danger coming.

The Sternbergs had discovered

a story locked in time...

of two ancient lives intersecting.

But why did the predator die

so soon after eating the dolly?

Tylosaurs were likely territorial and aggressive,

even with each other.

Perhaps an older tylosaur

suddenly appeared.

The younger tylosaur

is threatened and tiring...

slowed down by the large meal

in his stomach.

The female dolly is forgotten.

[Bones Snap]

The younger tylosaur is mortally wounded.

But his story isn't over.

His final fate was recorded in stone.

A shark's tooth lay near the fossil.

Look at this.

The female moves on with the others.

Soon the scavenging will begin.

The young dolly has seen

the deaths of her mother and brother...

but she survived.

Each year,

marine reptiles gather again...

in the birthing grounds

of the shallows.

Among them is the dolly

with the wounded flipper...

now fully grown.

She's completed her journey

and returned to the waters of her birth.

And after several seasons,

she becomes a mother.

Her young will grow

larger and stronger...

and, one day, set out on their own journey

through the inland sea.

Day by day, month by month...

life plays out.

She sees several litters

of her offspring mature...

and depart on lives of their own.

Eventually, a year comes

when the mother can't finish the migration.

One quiet day...

when old age has weakened her body...

her life comes to a gentle end.

Millions of years' worth

of days and nights and seasons pass...

as she lies undisturbed.

Sea levels rise and fall.

Around the world, continents shift...

and volcanic activity

changes the face of the Earth.

New species appear,

and old species vanish-

including the last

of the sea monsters.

Beneath the shifting land,

the remains of the great ocean reptiles...

are turned by time into rock.

[Girl]

Buddy!

- And lie hidden until exposed.

- Buddy!

This time, by a summer rain.

[Woman Chattering]

[Man]

It might be a complete specimen.

[Woman]

How are we gonna take it out?

We may have to plaster the whole thing

and take it out in a jacket.

[Woman]

Hey. Come check this out.

[Narrator] There was something unusual

about one of the rear flippers-

a shark's tooth

embedded between the bones.

After 82 million years...

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