New Marine Superpredator! Analysis Of The "Swiss Tyrant" and Other Giant Predatory Ichthyosaurs

thank you the University of Bonn 2018. a German paleontologist meets with her colleagues as an extraordinary find from the Swiss Alps is being passed around the treasure is an enormous root fragment of a tooth the size of an exhaust pipe over five centimeters in diameter the paleontologist realizes the sheer power of this animal a formidable macro predator and calculates a rough estimate of its size with its mass rivaling that of the greatest known predators to ever exist only a handful of people who even know of the beast's existence until its publication four years later and now for the first time this gigantic predator's true size is revealed to the public as of the time of this video's writing the two largest confirmed apex predators in history were of totus Megalodon a giant whale-eating shark and livyatan melvale a giant whale-eating raptorial whale both of these animals were from similar time periods living throughout the myosin and pliocene and coexisted for a few million years at over 15 meters and 50 tons the livyatan holotype is slightly larger than a bull sperm whale at nearly 16 meters and 61.5 tons the recently described atotus Megalodon vertebrate column is also enormous these two animals are two of the greatest apex predators to ever exist in Earth's history but they have a new Challenger on the Block the new monster isn't a mosasaur the largest of which could reach 14.6 meters and 16 tons it's also not a giant plyosaur like sachikasaurus which maxed out at 11 meters and 13.5 tons while formidable those joint predators don't hold a candle to this new Titan for decades the Marine reptile group that our Challenger belongs to has been constantly overlooked with larger members of their kind being seen as either filter feeders resection feeders but new evidence shows that not only were they macro predatory but far larger than anyone thought ichthyosaurs or as some may call them the sea dragons or Triassic Jurassic marine reptiles that resemble the terrifying mixture of whales and tuna their Sleek powerful bodies could cut through the water with their thuneiform body plan but also had a layer of blubber and were likely powered by a high Active Metabolism in recent years our knowledge of ichthyosaur body size and predatory behavior has blown apart what we thought to be their limits for example shonasaurus papularis a large late Triassic shosta sword which reached a length of 14 or 15 meters with its skull around 3 meters long or more accurate around 2.75 meters weighed 17 to 26 tons that's based on a mass estimate my researcher Darius Now using a skeletal from Scott Hartman though the upper end may be more likely shonasaurus was once thought to be toothless but now a new redescription of seven close-related skeletons in the looning formation in central Nevada by Kelly tall 2022 has changed that an article published in the hakai magazine gives a good overview with comments from the authors according to researcher Paige de Polo shonasaurus has large pointed teeth that are deeply rooted the article further states that researchers now suspect that the ichthyosaur was an enormous Predator morik into a whale-sized crocodile than a baleen whale Neil P Kelly the lead author of the paper hypothesizes that shonasaurus was an opportunistic Predator crunching the shells of ammonites and feeding on other marine reptiles in the actual paper it describes how shonasaurus fossilized remains include deep jaw fragments bearing large teeth with highly infolded Roots set in distinct sockets these are clearly large conical teeth closer to railroad spikes than those from a peaceful giant this updated skeletal reconstruction by Tasha Holman shows how this toothy ichthysaur would actually look the animal's sharp toothed Anatomy clearly implies that it was a predator of large prey not a filter feeder or suction feeder several years before this paper was published it was already hinted that shonasaurus was a macro predator in the SVP abstract Kelly tall 2016. the article States we located multiple dentidris as popularis jaws and isolated teeth in the field and existing collections including a genre display Quarry these fossils confirm the presence of teeth in all onto genetic stages these robust occasionally caronate teeth sit in individual sockets likely played a role in prey capture or processing and indicate a macro predatory Niche rather than filter or suction feeding but it actually goes beyond that camp 1980 already showed that shonasaurus populars had teeth the idea of macro predatory ichthyosaurus has seemingly been overlooked for decades due to long-standing assumptions in paleontology thanks to the widespread attitude that only mosasaurs and plyosaurs were macro predatory it wasn't even considered that large ichthyosaurs could be too despite the many pieces of fossil evidence the contrary fortunately that period seems to have ended another highly interesting tidbit of information from Kelly tall 2022 is the explanation behind why these fossilized skeletons of shonasaurus are grouped together in an article published by the Smithsonian Magazine it states shonasaurus seems almost out of place where the majority of the fossils have been found the problem is that there doesn't seem to be any prey large enough for such a carnivore in the same rocks other than Shona Source itself I'm surprised by the lack of non-shonah source remains at the locality especially the apparent dearth of bony fishes ichthysaur researcher Aaron a Maxwell says lacking evidence of cannibalism therefore the paleontologists proposed that shonasaurus did their hunting and feeding elsewhere and deposited their babies in the warm relatively predator-free Waters of what eventually became Berlin we in first shonasaurus congregated close to what was then the traffic Coastline even though it was fairly deep water co-author Nicholas D pianson says the pattern is similar to that of whales that travel to give birth in places like Monterey Bay just in a different Oceanic setting if the paleontologist migratory hypothesis is correct then Shona Source returned to the same area time and again to give birth over a span of more than a hundred thousand years Kelly stated the abundance of Shona Source in and around central Nevada might mean this place was special to the reptiles perhaps it was a place to mate give birth or migrate across I like to imagine flying low and seeing hundreds of thousands of giant ichthyosaurs moving through a river of thousands of macro predatory humpback whale-sized ichthyosaurs migrating to give birth and nurseries would likely strike fear into the heart of any Mesozoic animal the close convergence of ichthyosaurs with modern cetaceans including this Mass periodic migration for birth melee'd one to think this could be evidence of complex citation-like social behavior and ichthyosaurus well the truth is we simply don't know for example basking sharks are solitary filter feeders but congregate in massive numbers for courtship but that doesn't mean they have complex social behaviors or consistently travel in groups like cetaceans however for aqueousaurs it is a possibility the paper States the results presented here underscore an additional behavioral trait that emerged early in atheist or Evolution grouping behavior of adults I don't think it matters that much as any large prey item including smaller ichthyosaurs wouldn't probably care if the multiple giant macro predatory ichthyosaurus chasing them down were simply migrating towards Nursery or traveling in pods like cetaceans they'd get ripped apart either way another enormous macro predatory ichthysaur was the early Jurassic temnodontosaurus a Genus composed of several species with some well-preserved large specimens such as T platidon and tea trigonidon reaching 9 to 10 meters in length or around the same length as the largest bowl of orcas in 2021 a near-complete enormous ichthyosaurus skeleton was discovered in the UK and named the Rutland Sea Dragon a 10.06 meter long tamadontosaurus specimen possibly 5.15 tons it had enormous eyes and a ring of scoots bony plates to protect them from the water pressure during deep Dives there are also small vertebrae from that of a young atheist or fossilized in its stomach however what people don't know is that some fragmentary remains suggest that tendodontosaurus was significantly larger in fact the most fearsome predator of the Jurassic was likely an ichthyosaur and not a pliosaur as many would think researcher Darius Now using a more complete temodontosaurus trigonadon specimen was able to scale three fragmentary remains which would belong to enormous specimens specimen bmnh481 based on the scapula would be 13.9 meters and 13.6 tons larger than the largest known T-Rex Scotty the other two specimens are even more enormous and although some people were skeptical of these sizes it is important to note that vertebrae scaling is one of the most accepted forms of scaling if you have to scale from an isolated bone as it varies the least from Individual to individual and is a structure supporting part of the skeleton not only that but darius's colleague and supervisor Dr P Martin sander works on ichthyosaurus in fact Darius is the one who was able to examine the new giant macro predatory ichthyosaur long before the paper regarding it was published the one who held the enormous tooth in their hands in the intro of this video so their credentials on this topic are certainly up to par this is an appropriate time to give a big shout out to Darius who's the reason that this video is being made in the first place specimen bmnh r266 based on an interior caudal Centrum was 15 meters long and 17.2 tons making it larger than a female sperm whale which around 11 meters and 15 Tons in adult size at 16.1 meters and 21.1 tons the tempedontosaurus specimen from when a 1922 based on an interior caudal Centrum is utterly enormous and comparable in Mass to a medium-sized baleen whale it's the same length as Megalodon in Leviton but significantly less massive with its elongated Rostrum and less robust body it's also important to note that the temdodontosaurus GDI is still a work in progress that they might come back to at some point so these figures could change in the meantime once more accurate measurements are done additionally people think that due to the Slender skull morphology of ichthyosaurs in general even that of raptorial ones such as temodontosaurus that they wouldn't be able to have powerful bites but in fact according to an article by the BBC after using CT scanning and surface scanning on this skull of attempted onto Source around 2 meters in length they found that with its lever-like jaws in the posterior region were the most powerful bite is produced it closed its jaws with over thirty thousand Newtons or over three tons of force that's already double that of a saltwater crocodile which holds the record for the most powerful bite of any living animal but imagine that devastating by upscale to a 16 meter tempodontosaurus if this two meter skull belonged to attend the dontosaurus around 10 meters in length then a maximum size 16.1 meter 21.2 ton temptedontosaurus would have a posterior bite force of 77 763 Newtons around 7.93 tons that's 1.6 times more than the posterior bite force of a T-Rex which is 48 505 Newtons or 4.95 tons according to Sakamoto 2022 based on the specimen stand if the two meter skull belong to a smaller tendonosaurus perhaps 9.33 meters in length than the posterior bite force of a 16.1 temtodontosaurus would further increase to 89 268 Newtons or 9.1 tons this has implications Beyond just tendonosaurus as it means that other macro predatory ichthyosaurs were also likely able to generate High bite forces even with a relatively slender skull one important thing to note is that tendon to source is a Genus may be a waste basket taxon composed of several different ichthyosaurs based on the differences in morphology and time between them although this isn't confirmed T urecephalus was 6 meters in length and had proportionally shortened robust jaws with proportionally larger teeth compared to tea trigonidon and platidon which had Fairly long and slender teeth but still more robust Jaws than those of non-repatorial source T azer quinces had an unusually thin Rostrum and was probably not as raptorial better suited for taking on smaller prey but before getting to the new ichthyosaur a beast in the same tier as Megalodon and Livia Don we need to take a look at the predatory atheism will use to scale it imagine a marine Hunter with a nine foot skull and a body two to three times heavier than the largest Mosasaurus that's himalayasaurus hypotensis when it was discovered there were only very fragmentary remains such as a portion of its Rostrum teeth some ribs vertebrae and portions from its flippers unlike many other ichthyosaurs the late Triassic himalayasaurus had laterally compressed teeth which is significantly better suited for macro predation compared to conical teeth but some paleontologists at the time wrote it off as not being a marine reptile as they thought ichthyosaurus couldn't have evolved such a dentition in motania told 1996 a redescription of himalayasaurus was done where they confirmed a close relationship with shosta swords based on a radius bone they also stated himalayasaurus was probably within the size range of shonasaurus assuming similar body proportions for the two closely related Genera the large size and extensive cutting edges of the teeth and hypotensis suggest that large vertebrates were probably among its prey items recently a user named Chang Jing Ying created a skeletal reconstruction of himalayasaurus based on the body proportions of other ichthyosaurs and from a GDI it came out to an astonishing 35 tons at 15.6 meters in length its skull is clearly robust and built to take on large prey the skulls and jaws of shonosaurus papularis looks like a twig by comparison this makes it nearly on par with a todus Megalodon in libyaton and essentially in the same tier as the other two neogene Titans mosasaurs are up to 16 tons and giant plyosaurs at up to 13.5 tons don't even come close with that information in mind we could say that the big three largest and most powerful macro predators in history are one ototus Megalodon two livitan melvolais three Himalaya source to betensis but don't get too comfortable with that list since it's going to change into about 3 seconds imagine something like himalayasaurus but bigger on pyrophytotus Megalodon Leviton an equal rival a true Challenger in both size and ferocity to the two neogene Titans the paper sanderitol 2022 describing various fossilized ichthyosaur remains teases a very fragmentary but clearly enormous macro Predator the one in the video's prologue we'll call this new Beast the Swiss Tyrant an article published in the guardian gives a good summary with additional comments from the authors a fossil from one of the beasts was an incomplete tooth 10 centimeters in length not associated with any vertebrae or other skeletal Remains the team found an enormous vertebrae rib fragments relating to another the fossils of the third included seven large vertebrae lead author Dr P Martin Sanders said none of the remains appeared to be known species of ichthyosaur the team says that the tooth which lacks most of its Crown is only the second to have come from a giant ichthyosaur and is the largest ever found for such a creature surpassing those of a species known as himalayasaurus which was discovered in China and is thought to have had a body length of about 15 meters ichthyosaurs have a very characteristic tooth structure that's visible in the root and also in the crown said sander adding that the toothy giant discovered in the Alps probably would have eaten smaller anchiosaurs and giant squid Sanders said one of the creatures appeared to have been about the same size as himalayasaurus while the other two including the toothy Beast were probably similar in size to the giant ichthyosaurus a creature found previously in British Columbia and there was about 21 meters long around two double-decker bus lengths that skeleton had vertebrae that had the same diameter as the one from the Alps at sander until now we have suspected that most of the largest ichthyosaurs were Toothless and were suction feeders he said adding that the size of the newly reported tooth was stunning the owner of this tooth was not to be messed with said paleontologist Dr Nick Fraser along with remains of vertebrae ribs here is really concrete evidence that in the past drastic water sheltered some truly massive ocean-going reptiles end quote although the other fragmentary ichthyosaurs in the paper are interesting will focus on specimen p-i-m-u-z-a-3670 the giant isolated ichthyosaur tooth comparable in diameter to that of a large theropod so how do we scale this from just a tooth alone unlike in more conserved animals such as sharks there is huge uncertainty when it comes to scaling teeth from reptiles however there is a method to do so in this case since the current is broken we can't use the length of the tooth to extrapolate a size out of the five measurements given maximum Crown diameter seems to be the best choice and is somewhat similar to an accurate tooth sizing method used for a totus Megalodon Himalaya source to betensis specimen ivp v4301 the 15.6 meter and 35 ton holotype we talked about earlier has a maximum Crown diameter of 39.5 millimeters by comparison the late Triassic Swiss Tyrant has a maximum Crown diameter of 46 millimeters and we can simply use linear scaling through Division and multiplying the total length of Himalaya source for a mass estimate then upscaling that isometrically to find the mass this would suggest that the Swiss Tyrant was 18.17 meters in length and an astounding 55.3 tons in mass surpassing that of a mature ball sperm whale of 16 meters and 45 tons and essentially the same size as Megalodon in Leviton since it's difficult to visualize the size difference by just talking about numbers here's a size comparison of the two teeth from the supplementary paper with the Himalayas Source on the left and the Swiss Tyrant tooth on the right since I'm not an ichthies or expert or professional paleontologist I reached out to researcher Darius now in order to get further information and Confirmation here's the quote hi your figures align pretty well with my own rough estimates for the specimen as I hinted I do not think this tooth should reasonably be taken as evidence of a blue whale sized animal it's in my opinion more likely that this was a very large but not blue whale sized ichthyosaur with relatively large macrophagus dentition however of course there is a hypothesis and depending on the analog in the tooth position you could potentially get such a wide range of estimates that is almost meaningless to give a size estimate if I had to make a choice himalayasaurus of course quite fragmentary itself is likely the best analog as it is the closest in tooth size and also fairly close stratigraphically as opposed to example given cypruspondolids it's pretty validating to know that the extrapolated figures come out close to that of professional paleontologists and that the analog of bulkier himalayasaurus would also be the best choice to use for scaling rather than a more slender analog when further questioned on the method used to get an approximate size of the Swiss Tyrant Darius stated I also used chrome diameter and comparison with himalayasaurus so my estimate would be identical to yours although as I was not trying to propose a serious estimate merely prophylactically dispelled myths that this thing was some sort of blue whale size Behemoth I never reported it precisely I agree however that the most reliable approach is to compare multiple measurements if we use the total height of the tooth which is estimated rather than any actual measurement we get a length estimate of 18.18 meters we can't use Crown height since the tooth crown is broken off root height would give an estimate of 19.15 meters and root diameter using the smaller root measurement would give a mind-boggling 23.92 meters however this is almost certainly a very large overestimate tooth height is estimated and thus probably not that exact although it's very close and the root diameter is quite variable as the roots of teeth are generally more variable than the crowns of teeth it seems safer to go with an estimate of 18.17 meters rather than risk overestimating the size as the maximum Crown diameter likely would vary the least compared to the other measurements given Dr Martin sander did guesstimate this tooth to come from an acetoneense sized animal so technically it could be even larger but then again esiconiensis may be only 18.5 meters in length which is close to the maximum Crown diameter estimate anyways the tooth is conical in shape in comparison to the lateral compression of himalayasaurus so does that mean it was less macro predatory macro predatory ichthyosaurs exist on a spectrum some with more adaptations than others such as proportionally larger or more robust Jaws or laterally compressed teeth and cutting edges however what may surprise them is that such adaptations are not necessary for macro predation and icky Source even ones that don't have those specific adaptations May indeed turn out to be successful macro predators in the article jeongatal 2020 it states in the absence of direct evidence circumstantial evidence such as body size and tooth shape has been used to infer the diet of fossil marine reptiles if a large species has large teeth of carinate cutting edges it is usually considered the apex predator of its ecosystem even in the absence of a direct record of its diet however it is also known that not all Marine apex predators have teeth with carinate example given the killer whale and temodontosaurus trigonidon guiso ichthyosaurus is the genus of anchiosaur that would not be considered an apex predator based on the traditional criteria its typical size range is around 46 meters in total length being smaller than the killer whale organized Orca although some individuals reached about 7 meters its teeth lacked karenine and were not very large for the body size however in 2010 a nearly complete skeleton of guiseo ichthyosaurus that directly contradicts this interpretation was excavated from glodinian middle Triassic in China inside the stomach of the 4.8 meter longwas ichthyosaurus they found the body of a thilatosaur approximately 4 meters in length with a missing tail and head likely severed by that of the ichthyosaur before swallowing it the tail was found 23 meters away the vertebral column of the thalatosaurus broke into Strings showing the ichthysaur had a high bite force and possibly swallowed it in one to four pieces as described earlier three characteristics of the dentition suggest that the guis ichthyosaurus specimen belonged to the smash feeding Guild whose members pranced off cephalopods in contrast the bromelite reveals that his site included large marine reptiles basically to understand how crazy this would be this would be the equivalent of a 16 meter 45 ton sperm whale which you'd expect to eat giant squid in the occasional small shark to end up killing and eating an 8 meter 6 ton Orca and fully ingesting it another interesting case they discuss is basanosaurus considered a cephalopod feeder with a small skull teeth and a slender snout the type specimen has small aqueous vertebrae inside of it and it may not be from that of an embryo or its baby as previously thought but rather another smaller ichthysaur as the center are too well developed for that of an embryo and more characteristic of an adults they conclude with this therefore there may have been more Mega Predators with grasping teeth than currently recognized candidates include two ichthyosaur Genera from the illyrian the anesian of the middle Triassic with grasping teeth and slightly larger body size than quasitheosaurus basanasaurus a monotypic Genus that belongs to Shasta soride as does quasique thesaurus and cyber spondylus so ichthyosaurs that were not previously thought to be macro Predators may actually have been so but the Swiss Tyrant is no grasper even though it's teeth are conical it certainly was a true macro predator in every sense of the word with adaptations to take on large prey including deeply rooted teeth for handling High stresses when puncturing prey atoms and it could likely take on prehistoric prey even larger than modern orcas the diameter of its teeth rivaled out of T-Rex and giant plyosaurus which is pretty impressive however it's not like ichthyosaurs only have their jaws and teeth as offensive weapons Figure 1 in Pardo Perez at all 2020 shows fossilized pathological wounds and injuries from various ichthyosaurs from the Triassic and Jurassic the paper States traumatic injuries to the ribs and gastralia are conspicuously absent in the basano formation specimens whereas they occur much more frequently in post-triassic ichthysaur assemblages such healed rib fractures are often interpreted as products of intra-specific aggression and like bite traces found in the jaws of cyber spondylus shosta swords and mix of Swords probably resulted from aggressive encounters with con specifics as has been hypothesized for other ichthyosaurs extant adanta seat cetaceans also employ biting as well as body slamming High Velocity ramming and tail strikes during aggressive interactions these behaviors can result in broken ribs or even death and are enabled by the powerful tail fin which concentrates axial displacement in the caudal peduncle and is characteristic of a fusiform body plan imagine an enormous 18 meter 55-ton Swiss Tyrant ramming itself into another similarly sized Swiss Tyron anchiosaur in a dispute over food or territory or mating rights the immense Force concentrated on the tip of the roster with crack ribs and possibly be fatal we can see that the Swiss Tyrant was an extremely formidable animal a Mesozoic reptilian equivalent of Leviton and megalodon however there are some very important things to note regarding the size extrapolation of 18 meters and 55 tons this is based off of Himalaya source to betensis which is already a very fragmentary animal when the creator of the recent Himalayas or skeletal Zhang Jing Ying was asked about whether they were confident in the weight estimate they stated I'm not entirely certain and the estimation provided here may be somewhat overestimated however considering the robustness in the lateral view is comparable with the 3D model of tendonosaurus it could still weigh around 30 tons of this length if 30 tons were used instead then the Swiss Tyrant would be 47.4 tons at 18.17 meters in length which is still larger than a bull sperm whale and close to that of Leviton personally I'd stick to the original estimation of 35 tons as the author accounted for the gas trailia and it was likely bulkier than temdodontosaurus with a more robust body needed to support its massive skull but there's still great uncertainty regarding the Swiss Tyrant it's not a 100 accurate size estimation and significantly less certain than the 15 to 16 meter and 50 to 60 tons estimated for Megalodon and Leviton due to its highly fragmentary nature the exact position of the tooth is unknown as well as the proportional size of teeth to body length the bulk of the animal is also unknown among multiple other things which could significantly end up changing the extrapolated size that being said it was certainly a very large macro predatory ichthyosaur considering it has the biggest tooth of any aqueous or found so far what about another recent headliner egg theosaur us spondylus was a basal ichthyosaur genus from the early to metal Triassic and a few years ago was commonly overlooked as being a formidable Predator as the discovered specimens of the time were large but not even close to the big Shasta swords however when it was revealed in 2021 that the specimen Jim 2 was none other than a species of cymbuspondalis many people were quite surprised the paper Sandra tall 2021 describes this extraordinary find with a skull nearly two meters long and based on a humerus it would have been around 17.65 meters in length and 44.7 tons making it comparable in Mass to living cetaceans interestingly this fast growth would mean that ichthyosaurs reached larger body sizes much faster than cetaceans so they peaked somewhat early interestingly even with varying Mass estimates the middle traffic marine food webs were able to support several large-bodied ichthyosaurs at high trophic levels however the very high body mass is a bit questionable considering the Slender body shape of spondylitian Gorham and it turns out that's because they were simply scaled from a known GDI of Shona Source popularis up to the length of signpus modulation Corum even though shonasaurus was significantly bulkier Marcus Bueller author of The bestarium Blog neatly Illustrated this with a size comparison between a bull sperm whale which would weigh around 45 tons and sign the spondylician Gorham supposedly around the same mass but clearly this doesn't seem right as the ichthyus was much less bulky a knowledgeable skeletal artist chanjing Yin stated that if you calculate the body mass based on cellusaurus and utatusaurus 3D models which have a similar robustness to cyber spondylus you could only get a 17 to 22 tons same bespondo siangor at 17.6 meters basically this species of cyber spondylus was huge but only less than half the weight reported in the scientific paper at around 19.5 tons this still makes it absolutely enormous and nearly double the weight of the largest bull arcas but once again things are not as simple as they initially seem paleo artist Fabio Alejandro's reconstruction of cyber spondylus is around 15 meters rather than the 17.65 meters given the paper based on the length of central vertebrae and comparing it to that of other symbolism that downsizes it further and gives a lower Mass estimate of this reconstruction turns out to be accurate as it is sometimes in paleontology certain animals can be prone to hype and Joint ichthy sores are certainly no exception to see in the previous example sakaniensis another large Shasta sword from middle to lay Triassic is often claimed as being comparable in size to a very large whale with an estimate of up to 21 meters and 81.5 tons according to Sandra tall 2021. however this is an overestimation of its true mass as in the paper they simply scaled up S popularus but as popularis has significantly longer ribs of 3 meters versus the 1.9 meters in acetoneensis and a deeper body than many other ichthyosaurs Darius now used a better base model to extrapolate a mass estimate using a 3D model of guisic theosaurus tenge and scaling it to acetoneensis this gave a more accurate Mass estimate of 34.56 tons another independent size estimation came from cetology Hub who used several regressions for Modern War quilts as they had a similar slenderness and manipulated the girth and length to match that of a Shasta sort their Mass estimate is surprisingly close to that of Darius with a 21 meter as the coniensis being around 26 to 34 tons to complicate things more paleo artist Fabio Alejandro's extensive reconstruction of esiconiensis gave a more conservative length of around 18.5 meters however researcher Darius now stated this is a rough estimate of course but 30 to 40 tons for essaconians seems quite likely for the specimen irrespective of whether it is 21 or 18 meters also similar to bisonosaurus for a given length a 34 ton esiconiensis is large but not on the same level as a totus megalodon or Leviton let alone a large whale that's not even getting into the fact we don't have any idea about its ecology which is also a similar problem with another two giant fragmentary specimens we have in 2018 headlines were made when two surrangulars from enormous ichthyosaurs were described in lomox at all one named the Lil stock monster specimen at 26 meters in length and the other the Aus Colossus being 30 or more larger than that oil stock they are certainly very large even if highly fragmentary but how large exactly in an article by the lead author it is stated it's very difficult to accurately estimate the animal size because we only have a large piece of its jaw but we do know that the Lil stock fossil is about 25 percent larger than the same bone and so using a simple scaling Factor we can estimate that our ichthyosaur was up to 26 meters long comparing it with other shots disorder ichthyosaurus suggested it was between 20 meters and 25 meters in length so it seems using acetoneensis gives a larger size estimate assuming the initial 21 meter length is correct but even when using related shocks to sort ichthyosaurus the range varies by 5 meters and technically if the mean of this range is correct it would be 22.5 meters in length but what about the mass and upscaling from other atheosaurus as popularis and acetoneensis as of now are both considered Shasta swords and are both in the same family of shosta sore day but their bulk is significantly different from one another essentially shosta swords very significantly in mass and tend to be more slender in shape using one of the bulkiest ichthyosaurs might not be the best way to get a true estimation of its size cytology Hub estimated the Lil stock shots to sword at 26 meters and 49 to 64 tons and the Aus Colossus assuming a 40 scaling at 30.8 meters and 78 to 105 tons the Lil stock monster would be around the size of a totus Megalodon liviton whereas the ausch Colossus may have been enlarged as a Finn whale Darius more rigorously calculated that based on personasaurus and scaling up the Lil stock monster would be 21.4 meters and 39.6 tons assuming a more liberal scaling of 50 for the house Colossus this would give an estimate of 32.1 meters and 133 tons it's important to note that Darius stated that they used the maximum ratios from the figures reported by Lomax atol for both of the specimens so in that regard these do not represent lower bound estimates either the main estimate of scaling by 40 would give a mean size around 30 meters and 108 tons which is near identical to the method used by cetology hub so what about the idea that esiconiensis the littlestock monster or oust Colossus were macro Predators even larger than Megalodon while it's unlikely that sconi answers for the low stock monster were quite in the same category of mass the house Colossus was likely over 100 tons based on current calculations as we just discussed given the fragmentary nature of these specimens however no estimate is solid and we can't confidently say anything about the Ecology of these animals without preserved teeth we don't know if they were filter feeders suction feeders or macro predators and we can only hope that more material will be discovered with those disclaimers take into account and these smaller estimates for the Lil stock monster now's Colossus we should recognize that we simply don't know how big these animals were the fact that the absolute minimum estimates put the oust Colossus at nearly 80 tons is insane and it was likely far larger than that it's entirely possible that it was proportionally more bulky but we need more information to confidently say anything about the animal shosta swords very significantly in bulkiness and John morphology which can heavily impact these estimates this means that there's great uncertainty regarding your size and mass compared to the two neogene Titans however there is a way to test whether these two were macro Predators or not and that would be through nitrogen testing similar to Costa tall 2022 which analyzed nitrogen levels in a totus Megalodon teeth to determine their place in the predatory hierarchy for the giant ichthyosaurs this would look like isotope testing on the preserved surrangulars giving a better idea of how high up they were on the food chain there is a good chance that they were macro predators and occupied a high trophic level especially with recent evidence indicating similar behavior and shosta sorts but that's just a guess Dr Dean Lomax who led the original 2018 study that brought us our first tidbits and information about these colossi has promised that another description of the giant ichthyosaur material is coming soon stay tuned on this channel for coverage of those updates there are also gigantic unpublished giant ichthyosaurus specimens however it's not known if they're macro predatory or not as the current fossil evidence is too fragmentary Martin and all 2015 describes a large fragmentary radius of a Shasta sword from the lowermost Jurassic estimated to be 12 to 15 meters in length or nearly the same length as Shona Source popularis there is also a supposed enormous lost ichthyosaurus Centrum comparable to that of the sauropod but the outdated nature of the original description unusual Central length to width ratio and unclear measurement of this possible specimen makes it very unlikely that it was truly that size also in the original paper describing esiconiensis nickels and Mana Bay 2004 they state in the field this specimen measured 21 meters in length although isolated elements from other localities indicate that larger individuals existed however as of the time of this video nearly two decades have passed since the paper's publication and no formal description has been produced of set elements put it on your Christmas list I'm sure that they exist but it would be better if they were officially described so we could get a reliable estimate of how large esiconiensis could truly get also for ichthyosaurs such as the Welsh Giant and Martin and Tall 2015 and similar Giants where there isn't fossil evidence for macro Nation due to being too fragmentary nitrogen testing or other similar trophic level testing would help narrow down whether these ichthyosaurs were macro Predators or not and what would a marine reptile Cinematic Universe video be without a post-credit scene here on the Vivid end we'll soon be covering another new species of macro Predator surpassing all the ones that we've described in this video this paper might just rewrite our understanding of the ancient Ocean's power structure but there's always a bigger fish further down the line we'll be publishing an in-depth analysis of the most dangerous macro Predator that's ever evolved on earth a beast that even surpasses the near-mithical oust Colossus the top three Predators discussed in this video are firecrackers compared to the nuclear warhead that's approaching so get into your bunkers grab your food storage and get your popcorn ready for an exclusive representing months of research and collaboration the collective knowledge of countless people scientific papers fossils and calculations never before seen both fact and speculation past and present myth and Legend will be coming to you right here on the vividend thanks for watching subscribe to the vividend and to apexias for more paleontology updates feel free to check out the ultimate Battles Discord server and vividend subreddit with links in the description make sure to check back in a few months something huge will be dropping then and you won't want to miss it also big shout out to Apex yes for being the driving research force behind this video This is the first of multiple collabs so don't forget to subscribe to both channels if you're a fan of high quality paleontology work see you next time

Channel: Vividen: Paleontology Evolved

Views: 226,949

Keywords: sea monster, Aust colossus, megalodon, livyatan, bigger than megalodon, otodus megalodon, the vividen, megatheropods, paleontology, paleontology news, oceanic superpredator, marine superpredator, giant sea monster, biggest sea creatures, underwater monsters, bigger than Livyatan, vs Livyatan, how big was megalodon, livyatan vs megalodon

Id: rOVWVgVCiKc

Length: 34min 4sec (2044 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023