Sea Rex 3D: Journey to a Prehistoric World Page #2

But they, too,

have developed a tough armour

to keep them relatively safe from

the great predators of the Triassic,

like... the Nothosaur.

Over 1 3 feet long.

Very dangerous,

and an excellent swimmer.

But it has no chance of catching up

with a Mixosaurus.

- (JULlE) lt looks like a dolphin.

- Except it's a reptile.

Like marine mammals today, it, too,

must come to the surface to breathe.

It belongs to the large group

of lchthyosaurs,

which will rule the seas

for some 1 50 million years!

(JULIE) That one doesn't seem

quite big enough to rule anything.

There are also

some very large Ichthyosaurs,

some measuring up to 75 feet long

and weighing 50 tons!

Like the Shonisaurus,

the biggest of them all.

Wow!

Like all lchthyosaurs,

it lives in groups

and mainly eats

molluscs and small fish.

(JULIE) They look like

dolphins and whales!

That's right. They're even born

in a similar manner.

What do you mean?

Well, let's hear from an expert,

the palaeontologist Ryosuke Motani.

He has just finished studying

some very fine specimens

from a famous fossil site in Germany.

Many Ichthyosaur fossils

have been found at Holzmaden

with their bones intact

and even with the imprint

of their skin on the rock,

which helped us to know

the position of their fins.

Some Ichthyosaur fossils

are so well preserved

that we can actually see foetuses

inside the mother's bodies,

and some even being born.

Unable to get out of the water

to lay their eggs like other reptiles,

Ichthyosaurs gave birth in the water.

The babies came out tail first,

like dolphins today.

Another one of the lchthyosaur's

characteristics are its huge eyes,

protected by doughnut-shaped bones

able to withstand

extreme water pressure.

A Jurassic lchthyosaur,

the Ophthalmosaurus,

stands out in the animal kingdom

as having the largest eyes

in proportion to its body.

With these enormous eyes,

it could make out its prey

in the darkness of great depths.

Strangely enough,

the Ichthyosaurs became extinct

in the middle of the Cretaceous,

despite their amazing adaptation

to sea life.

(JULIE) But how can we know so much

about species that became extinct

90 million years ago?

Perhaps because of the large number

and the quality of fossils left.

And, of course, thanks to

those who discovered them.

Here we are in London, in

one of the most beautiful galleries

devoted to Mesozoic marine reptiles.

Nathalie Bardet is currently

the French expert on these animals.

A long time before dinosaurs

were discovered,

the remains of marine reptiles

had been known to fossil collectors.

Mary Anning.

In the early 1 9th century,

she was a child

when she started to collect fossils

around her home

along the Dorset coast

in southern England.

During her lifetime,

with an amazingly sharp eye,

she found some of the most famous

fossils, Ichthyosaur and Plesiosaur,

exhibited here at the Natural History

Museum of London.

One of the most complete

Plesiosaur skeletons ever found

was Rhomaleosaurus.

This Early Jurassic predator

was a powerful swimmer.

(HlSSING)

During the Jurassic period,

a new group of marine reptiles

takes over, the Plesiosaurs.

At the beginning of

the Early Jurassic,

Pangea has started to break up

and drift apart into different pieces.

It is still hot, but the climate

is becoming much more humid.

Such conditions are perfectly suited

to the development of life

all over the world.

Now this sure seems more pleasant

than the Triassic did.

The Jurassic is considered

the golden age of dinosaurs, isn't it?

In fact, it's the golden age

of life in general,

and even much more so

for the reptiles,

be they earth,

flying or marine reptiles.

With their four strong paddles,

Plesiosaurs soon become

the new kings of the seas.

The first dinosaur to be named

is Megalosaurus,

which means "great lizard" in Latin.

A well-deserved name

for a 30-foot-long carnivore

with a huge appetite.

Molluscs like ammonites and belemnites

experience an unprecedented growth

and are on the menu

of most marine predators.

By the Late Jurassic,

some animals reach record sizes,

like the Brachiosaurus,

over 1 00 feet long

and can weigh

more than six elephants.

Godzilla. That is the nickname given

to this large marine crocodile

discovered in the Andes.

With large, bony plates on its back,

the Stegosaurus,

a three-ton plant-eater,

is a contemporary

of the very first birds.

At the end of the Jurassic period,

as the continents continue to drift,

new oceans appear and new

Plesiosaur species rule the deep.

The Liopleurodon is most likely

one of the largest ocean predators

of the Mesozoic,

measuring 49 feet or more.

That big?

Here. This is one of its teeth.

It's for you.

Thank you!

You see, the Liopleurodon had

no reason to fear any creature,

save perhaps another Liopleurodon.

Here is a pair of Liopleurodon.

The male is attempting

to court the female.

Look at her - 50 feet of sheer muscle,

four deadly paddle-like limbs,

and jaws about ten feet long

that hold teeth

even bigger than the one l gave you.

During this process,

the male makes himself

extremely vulnerable to the female.

(JULIE) lt seems to have worked.

Now that she's chosen him

as her partner,

the pair needs to head to the safer

coastal waters to reproduce.

Like sharks, the male Liopleurodon

holds on to the female while mating.

Their young will be born

in a few months.

(JULIE) What happened?

It seems that upon separating

she has accidentally injured his eye.

The pain has made him

lose consciousness for a while.

In the end, though,

the Liopleurodon remains

a superpredator that lives alone.

At the end of the Jurassic Era,

its territory spanned

from Europe to South America.

Here we are with Zulma Gasparini,

who discovered the marine crocodile

nicknamed "Godzilla" in the Andes.

People believed for a long time

that the world had always

been the same as it is now.

And it was only in 1 91 5 that Alfred

Wegener, a young German scientist,

put forward a revolutionary theory

he called the "continental drift".

Among the solid arguments that

Wegener used to support his theory,

a tiny marine reptile

that lived 250 million years ago,

the Mesosaurus, was to become

unexpectedly important.

Indeed we have found on both sides

of the Atlantic Ocean

identical fossils of this animal.

But considering the small size

of the Mesosaurus,

like the one we have here

in this virtual aquarium,

it is obvious they were

much too small to cross an ocean

as vast as the Atlantic on their own.

The conclusion is inescapable:

if they did not cross the ocean,

then the very continents

that contained their fossils

must have separated.

(SCREECHlNG)

The Jurassic was the age

of giant animals.

The Leedsichthys

is approximately 1 00 feet long,

probably the largest fish

of all time.

What are these

long-necked Plesiosaurs called?

Those are Elasmosaurs.

They're gulping down gastroliths,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes