What is the significance of the discovery of 2400 million year old ichthyosaur bone fragments in Rus

June 20 -- According to RIA Novosti 20**, a representative of the Oceanarium of Primorsky Krai in Russia said that on the coast of an island in Vladivostok, a group of biology students found two fragments of ichthyosaur ribs from 100 million to 100 million years ago. According to the representative, two ichthyosaur bones have been transported to the aquarium and placed in the technical room for further processing. Due to its fragility, it is not currently shown to the outside world.

This is the third time that ichthyosaur bones have been found on Russian islands. ”

From being one of the weakest sea creatures in the beginning, ichthyosaurs have gradually developed into the most powerful ocean overlords, which have experienced many strong winds and waves, but they have survived, not to mention that in the ocean, the more apex predators, the less likely they are to encounter extinction. If the extinction of ichthyosaurs is caused by the poor ecological environment, then marine organisms that stay in similar closed or closed environments are the most likely to become extinct, such as big-eyed ichthyosaurs.

And those predators at the top, such as the dragon, have a wide range of their breath, and the entire ocean may be their hunting range, even if the environment is very harsh, but as long as there is prey in the sea, the dragon will not starve to death due to lack of food, and will be able to survive the crisis. Only a catastrophe like a glacier or a comet-like impact on Earth can put an end to an apex predator like Shanglong.

Nowadays, ichthyosaurs have long been a kind of legend, and the upper dragon has also been extinct for some reason. It's hard to imagine what it would be like when the last ichthyosaur swam in the ocean, looking for its companion all over the ocean. Or do you want to find a quiet place and wait quietly for the judgment of fate?

Or is it dying because of lack of food? Scientists have found through research that a large number of ichthyosaurs eventually went extinct and related to the species that ichthyosaurs ate, the vast majority of ichthyosaurs only ate some mollusks, such as squid, etc., in the Triassic to Jurassic periods, the number of marine plankton was decreasing, which also led to the decrease in the number of squid, and finally many ichthyosaurs did not have enough food and became extinct.

The greatest significance of the discovery is to prove that ichthyosaurs once survived in the seas near Russia.

The ichthyosaur is an extinct marine reptile that resembles fish and dolphins. The first sighting of ichthyosaur wreckage on the Russian islands was in 2014. In 2020, ichthyosaur bones were found again on Russian islands, and it was tentatively determined that they lived about 100 million years ago.

It means that there was a creature such as an ichthyosaur a long time ago, and life existed on the Russian islands a long time ago.

This discovery shows that fish appeared hundreds of millions of years ago, the origin of the development of human society, and the existence and evolution of biodiversity.

The ichthyosaur is an ancient reptile that looks like a fish and belongs to the subclass Tonoko, which belongs to the class Reptiles. Ichthyosaurs appeared about 100 million years ago and became extinct about 90 million years ago. (In this respect, ichthyosaurs are different from dinosaurs, which appeared 100 million years ago and became extinct 65 million years ago.) ）

The ancestor of the ichthyosaur was an unknown reptile that lived on land, and when they gradually adapted to life in the sea, their bodies also underwent a series of changes, and eventually evolved into the ichthyosaur. This evolutionary path is similar to that of dolphins that live in the ocean today, the ancestor of the dolphin is a mammal that looks a bit like a dog, about 5,000 years ago, the ancestors of dolphins began to try to live in the ocean, in order to adapt to marine life, they no longer have hair, and their bodies have become streamlined and smoother.

Ichthyosaurs have a lot of similarities with dolphins – a narrow and long snout with small, sharp teeth. Their limbs have degenerated or become fin-like, with a body length of 2 to 4 meters, which is streamlined and can swim at speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour. Ichthyosaurs flourished in the Jurassic era and were the overlords of the oceans, and in the Cretaceous period due to the appearance of plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs gradually lost their survival advantage, and before the asteroid hit the earth 65 million years ago and made the dinosaurs extinct, ichthyosaurs were almost extinct on the earth.

Is ichthyosaur a fish or a dragon?

Ichthyosaurs have a fish-like appearance and fins, but there are significant differences between the two. Fish breathe with gills, while ichthyosaurs breathe with their lungs, so ichthyosaurs come to the surface every once in a while to breathe (similar to dolphins and whales). Ichthyosaurs belong to different classes taxonomically from fishes, so ichthyosaurs are not fishes.

The fact that ichthyosaurs have so many similar characteristics with fish is the result of convergent evolution.

Ichthyosaurs were not dinosaurs either, and what both have in common is that they both belong to the category of archaeoreptiles. But in the scientific classification, ichthyosaurs are so far from dinosaurs that they are not even close relatives. The following diagram illustrates the difference between the two.

There are many reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, such as plesiosaurs, cantosaurs, ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, etc., which are characterized by their relatively large size and have long been extinct. Therefore, many people ** classify them as dinosaurs, in general, there is nothing wrong with this classification (because after all, they are all reptiles), but in the scientific classification, plesiosaurs, cangsaurs, ichthyosaurs, and pterosaurs are not dinosaurs.

Although there is a fish and a dragon in the name of ichthyosaurs, ichthyosaurs are neither fish nor dragons, they are ichthyosaurs. However, from the perspective of the general public, when giving popular science to children or non-professionals, it is not necessary to talk so carefully, and it is not a big mistake to call ichthyosaurs dinosaurs in general.

It is a large marine reptile that resembles a dolphin in particular, with a narrow and long nose and a mouth with many small teeth.

It is a large marine reptile that is very large like a dolphin, with a lot of teeth in its mouth and a narrow and long muzzle.

The ichthyosaur is an extinct marine reptile that resembles fish and dolphins.

This discovery means that there have been organisms for a long, long time, and this is a very significant discovery.

I know that this discovery means that the survival of this very living creature now means that this place can be lived.

It means that the bone fragments from hundreds of millions of years ago can still be preserved, and some creatures from hundreds of millions of years ago have also been discovered, so that we can better study some of the lives of hundreds of millions of years ago and study their development at that time.