Cover news reporter Liu Qing
Platypus is one of the most primitive mammals, first appearing 25 million years ago and living only in Australia today. This amazing species with a duck's beak and a skeletal structure similar to that of a reptile has been highly valued by the scientific community due to its slow evolution. Recently, Chinese scientists discovered platypus's "distant relatives" 200 million years ago.
Fossil photos and sketches of Carlo Dong's fan paddle dragon (Source: Ministry of Natural Resources official website)
The cover reporter learned from the Ministry of Natural Resources on February 18 that a research team led by Cheng Long, a senior engineer at the Wuhan Geological Survey Center of the China Geological Survey of the Ministry of Natural Resources, found for the first time marine reptile fossils with similar predation methods to living platypus in the Nanzhang-Yuan'an fauna of the early Triassic (about 248 million years ago).
It is understood that platypuses look for prey in a dim environment not through their eyes but through their unique soft beak shells. The two marine reptiles found by the team, Eretmorhipis carrolldongi, had key skull features that were very similar to those of platypus, suggesting that The carboudacta should have a similar feeding style to platypus, possibly preying on shrimp or other mollusks at dusk or at night.
Ecological restoration map of Carlo Dong's fan paddle dragon (Source: Ministry of Natural Resources official website)
The scientific community believes that the discovery of this new predation method in the Nanzhang-Yuan'an fauna suggests that marine carnivores already had ecological diversity comparable to that of modern oceans at the end of the Early Triassic period, implying that marine ecosystems after the mass extinction of organisms at the end of the Permian had recovered at the end of the Early Triassic period, rather than being delayed to the middle of the Middle Triassic as traditionally believed.
Nanzhang County belongs to Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, and Yuan'an County belongs to Yichang City, Hubei Province. The cover news reporter learned that the Triassic vertebrate fossils produced in Yuan'an have the characteristics of early research history, large number of fossils, rich types, etc. The fossil production area has both national first-level protected fossils - Hubei crocodiles, and national second-level protected fossils - broad-headed far-old salamander, which has important scientific value for the study of reptiles.
In Songshugou, a patrol town in Nanzhang County, geological relics experts discovered the fossil group of marine reptiles of "Sun's Nanzhanglong" in 1959. The "Sun's Nanzhanglong" lived in the late Triassic period, more than 200 million years ago. In the ancient well of Banqiao Town, Nanzhang County, the fossil of the extinct marine reptile "Nanzhang Hubei Crocodile" has also been found, and the Hubei crocodile is a close relative of the Nanzhang dragon, which is a strong evidence for studying aquatic reptiles from land to sea and then from ocean to land. As early as 2014, the Nanzhang fossil production area and the Yuan'an fossil production area were selected as the first batch of 38 national key protected paleontological fossil concentrations in China, together with the Sichuan Zigong fossil production area.
The cover news reporter noted that in recent years, the Research Team of the Nanzhang-Yuan'an Fauna of wuhan Geological Survey Center has found a large number of well-preserved rare marine reptile fossils, including 7 new genera, and the oldest platypus-style predation method discovered this time is one of the results, which is of great significance for studying the formation process of modern marine ecosystems.
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