<h1>China discovered "platypus" that lived 248 million years ago</h1>
If you pay attention to recent paleontological news, you will definitely see reports of prehistoric "platypus", this kind of platypus that lived in Hubei, China during the Triassic period, it is the paddle dragon.
<h1>No head gets its name first</h1>
Speaking of the discovery of the paddle dragon, it can be traced back to the 1970s, when the yuanan county government in Hubei Province sent a working group to the mountainous area to investigate, and stumbled upon paleontological fossils. The fossils preserved on the slabs can clearly see the complete body, tail and limbs, but the head is missing, so the fossils are collected and numbered WGSC V26020.
Note: Fan paddle dragon fossil, the number WGSC V26020 above, the number IVPP V4070 below, the picture is from the paper
Later, another fossil was found in Nanzhang County, next to Yuan'an County, but also without a head, and the fossil was collected by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, numbered IVPP V4070.
It is precisely because of the lack of heads that the two fossils found in Hubei Province have not been studied and named. By 1991, the famous Chinese paleontologist Dong Zhiming and Robert L. Carroll had jointly completed a prehistoric paper on the paleontology of the lakeside environment, in which the fossil number IVPP V4070 was mentioned. The paper analyzed the independent features contained in the fossils, suggesting that the fossils represented a new species, but ultimately did not name them.
Picture note: Dong Zhiming, known as the "Dragon King of China", the picture comes from the Internet
Fast forward to 2015, the Wuhan Geological Survey Center under the China Geological Survey found the fossil numbered WGSC V26020 and studied it, and finally named it Eretmorhipis ,scientifically derived from the ancient Greek words "ερετμον" (meaning "paddle") and "ῥιπίς" (meaning "fan"), representing the shape of the flippers in the fossils. The model name of the scallop dragon is Eretmorhipis carrolldongi, and the species name is dedicated to Dong Zhiming and Robert Carlo, who first proposed the existence of the scallop dragon.
<h1>Prehistoric "platypus"</h1>
Despite its name, we don't know exactly what it looked like because known fossils lack skull parts. In 2018, paleontologists finally found more fossils of the paddle dragon in Hubei Province, and it was preserved with skulls. The discovery of the skull surprised paleontologists, and the oaredron originally had a head like today's platypus.
Image note: Complete fossil and skeletal line diagram of Apatosaurus, picture from the Internet
Note: Skull of a fan-paddle dragon, picture from the paper
The oared dragon was less than 1 meter long and had a surprisingly small head, only 5 centimeters long, equivalent to one-twentieth of its entire body length. The paddle dragon had a flat and wide mouth and a pair of nostrils on the top of the head. If you compare the skulls of the paddle dragon with the platypus, you will find that it is very similar, so the head of the paddle dragon is very similar to the platypus.
The small head of the oaredosaur is followed by a fat body and a long tail, and on its back there are protrusions, which can be seen from fossils. On either side of the body of the paddle dragon, there are two pairs of large fin-like limbs, one in front and one after the other, which resemble fans, which is also named after it.
Caption: Platypus (a) vs. the skull of The Oared Dragon (b), image from media.eurekalert.org
Illustration: The restoration of the fan paddle dragon, its head is really very small, the picture comes from the network
Judging from the appearance of the paddle dragon, it is obviously an aquatic reptile, which belongs to the Hubei crocodile order in terms of classification.
<h1>Foraging in muddy waters does not require eyes</h1>
Picture note: CCTV reported the fan paddle dragon, the picture is from the network
Photo note: Platypus is a blind induction predator, the picture comes from the network
The most special thing about the paddle dragon is its platypus-like head, which has also become its reported gimmick! Similar heads can not only be more accurately referenced, but also can explore the survival habits of the paddle dragon. It is likely that the paddle dragon, like the platypus, lived in diving, detecting shrimp, worms and other small invertebrates with its soft beak shell. It is likely that the oarosaurus will come out at dusk and night to forage, when the visibility of the surrounding environment is very low, so its eyes are not useful at all, mainly relying on the mouth shell foraging, so the oarosaurus became the earliest known vertebrate to forage by blind induction.
Photo note: Fan Paddle Dragon life restoration, picture from the network
From the appearance of the paddle dragon, it belongs to the complete marine reptile, living in a shallow sea environment. Today's Hubei province is located in the interior of the continent, but was submerged by seawater during the Early Triassic period, 248 million years ago. If you look at a map of the Early Triassic, you will find that at that time, the southern region of China was still a land mass located in the ocean, and there were many marine life living in it, so today we can find a large number of marine fossils in Hubei Province.
Note: Earth from the Early Triassic, picture from http://palaeos.com
Image note: The equally peculiar-looking Hubei crocodile, pictured from Wikipedia
In addition to the fan paddle dragon, paleontologists have found Hubei E, Hubei crocodile, Hubei crocodile, Nanzhang dragon, Fan paddle dragon belonging to the Fin Dragon class, Oulong and Guizhou Dragon belonging to the Fin Dragon, Chaohu Dragon belonging to the Ichthyosaur class, and so on in Yuan'an County and Nanzhang County of Hubei Province. Paleontologists named this fauna nanzhang-yuan'an fauna, and the fan-paddle dragon is part of the nanzhang-yuan'an fauna.
The latest research on the pulverosaurs enriches the diversity of the Crocodile order in Hubei, while the study of the Nanzhang-Yuan'an fauna has shown that the marine ecological environment was restored in the Early Triassic after the Permian mass extinction, and marine reptiles have also completed the first radiation!
Resources:
1. Xiao-hong Chen; Ryosuke Motani; Long Cheng; Da-yong Jiang; Olivier Rieppel (May 27, 2015). "A New Specimen of Carroll's Mystery Hupehsuchian from the Lower Triassic of China". PLoS ONE. 10 (5): e0126024. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.012602
2. Yan Chunbo: Cheng Long: Andrea Tintori: Li Zhihong: Yang Bo: Stratigraphic characteristics and paleogeographic environment analysis of the Nanzhang-Yuan'an fauna of the early Triassic of Western Hubei[J]; Proceedings of the 12th National Congress of the Chinese Paleontological Society and the 29th Annual Conference of the Chinese Paleontology Society; 2018
3. Rong Chen; Fenghong Chen; Long Cheng; Chunbo Jian; Nanzhang-Yuan'an Fauna in Hubei Province and Its Significance of Biological Recovery; Acta Geologica Sinica Vol. 90, No. 3; March 409-420, 2016
Image / Network (Intrusion and Deletion)
Text / Paleontological Exploration (Jiang Hong)
Typography / Paleontological exploration