[GEO.TV] Fossils from some of the largest creatures ever to swim Earth's oceans - whale-sized marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs - have been found in a counterintuitive place: atop three mountains in the Swiss Alps up to 8,990 feet (2,740 meters) above sea level.Three mountains in Switzerland? That sucker really was big!
Scientists on Thursday described rib and vertebrae fossils from two ichthyosaur individuals: one about 69 feet (21 meters) long and the other about 49 feet (15 meters). They described from a third individual the largest-known tooth from any ichthyosaur with a base 2.4 inches (6 cm) wide and an estimated length of 6 inches (15 cm), suggestive of a fearsome predator.
Yodeling ichthyosaurs!
The fossils, dating to around 205 million years ago near the end of the Triassic Period, make these three individuals among the largest of the giant ichthyosaurs that inhabited the oceans at a time when dinosaurs were beginning to dominate the land.
"The tooth is particularly interesting because it could possibly - but unlikely - represent the largest animal to ever inhabit Earth," said paleontologist Martin Sander of the University of Bonn, lead author of the study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
It was found atop the Chrachenhorn Mountain near Davos. Based on the fact that a 59-foot-long (18-meters-long) ichthyosaur described last year had a tooth with a base eight-tenths of an inch (2 cm) wide, Sander said, "then a tooth 6 centimeters wide could possibly have come from an animal 54 meters (177 feet) in length."
The animal likely was not that big but still formidable, perhaps akin to a sperm whale, hunting giant squid, large fish and smaller ichthyosaurs. Some other giant ichthyosaurs apparently lacked teeth and ate small fish and squid, sucking them up or engulfing them in their mouths.
