<h1>Paleontologists discover fat from ichthyosaurs 180 million years ago! </h1>
If you've ever seen fat flesh stone, you really think that it is made of fat meat, but in fact, fat meat cannot become stone or even fossil. There are exceptions to everything, and paleontologists recently found traces of fat on a 180-million-year-old ichthyosaur fossil from Germany, a discovery that will upend our understanding of ichthyosaurs.
Illustration: "Flower Flesh Stone". It's really like pork belly, and the picture comes from the web
<h1>Extraordinary narrow-winged ichthyosaur</h1>
Caption: Narrow-winged ichthyosaur preying on squid, image from the web
Photo note: Swarms of dolphins, image from the web
Stenopterygius was a ichthyosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic period 189 to 175 million years ago. Looking at the appearance of the narrow-winged ichthyosaur, it is easy to confuse it with dolphins, which have similar shapes, such as: slender nose, expanded head, rounded body, triangular dorsal fin, slender pectoral fin and developed tail fin. Although similar in appearance, ichthyosaurs and dolphins are reptiles and mammals, and they look like the result of convergent evolution.
Image note: Holzmaden is located in southern Germany, and the image comes from the Internet
Illustration: Children are digging up fossils in Holzmaden, pictured from the Internet
180 million years ago Holzmaden was an ocean, and the image comes from the Internet
The narrow-winged ichthyosaur's range encompassed all of Western Europe, but the most exquisite place to find its fossils was in Holzmaden, Germany, where a large number of fossils of marine life, including narrow-winged ichthyosaurs, were preserved in black sedimentary limestone. It is precisely because of the discovery of fossils of marine life that we know that during the Jurassic period hundreds of millions of years ago, Holzmaden, which is now located in southern Germany, is actually a tropical ocean.
The fossils of the narrow-winged ichthyosaurs found in Holzmaden are known for their exquisite beauty, which not only preserves intact bones, but even traces of soft tissues that allow us to see the outlines of its dorsal and caudal fins. The preservation of soft tissues plays an important role in more accurately restoring the appearance of narrow-winged ichthyosaurs.
Illustration: Fossils of Ichthyosaurs preserved with ammonite, image from the Internet
Image Note: A fossil of a narrow-winged ichthyosaur preserved in its production state, picture from the internet
Illustration Note: Skeletal line diagram produced by narrow-winged ichthyosaur, picture from the network
In addition to preserving soft tissue structures, Ichthyosaurus narrow-winged ichthyosaurs also unveiled the mystery of ichthyosaur reproduction. Paleontologists found the remains of small ichthyosaurs in the bodies of some narrow-winged ichthyosaurs, and at first researchers thought that large ichthyosaurs would eat small ichthyosaurs, but after the famous narrow-winged ichthyosaurs were found to produce fossils, we learned that the original narrow-winged ichthyosaurs and the entire ichthyosaur family were egg-born, which is a manifestation of highly adapted to marine life.
We've got a lot of information by studying the fossils of Ichthyosaurus narrow-winged, and that's just the beginning.
<h1>Fat from 180 million years ago</h1>
Image: Johan Lindgren, who is studying the fossils of the Dragon, is from the Web
Johan Lindgren, a paleontologist at Lund University in Sweden who is an expert on Marine Reptiles of the Mesozoic Era, noticed early on that in many ichthyosaur fossils, there are some gaps between the bones and the epidermis in addition to the muscles, and these gaps should have large areas of soft tissue.
As technology advanced, especially to be able to test the composition of specific parts of the fossil chemicals, Lindgren decided to study a ichthyosaur fossil that preserved a soft-tissue structure, figuring out what the gap was, and also to test whether the stabilizers used to reinforce the fossil and the material in the surrounding environment during the fossil restoration process would contaminate the fossil itself.
Photo note: Hauf Museum, picture from the internet
Photo note: Fossil of a narrow-winged ichthyosaur numbered MH 432, image from National Geographic Chinese Network
Where to find the ideal Ichthyosaur fossils? Lindgren sets his sights on the Urwelt-museum Hauff in Holzmaden, which houses a large collection of exquisite and precious ichthyosaur fossils. After searching through the collection of fossils, the museum did find a ichthyosaur fossil (number: MH 432) that met the requirements. As soon as the news broke, 23 scientists from all over the world immediately joined Lindgren's research team to find out the secrets in the ichthyosaur fossils.
Illustration: Fat structure found in the study, picture from the paper
The Japanese are cutting cetaceans and can see the fat layer under the skin, picture from the internet
In studying the fossils, paleontologists noticed that there was subcutaneous tissue in the skin residue, which turned out to be a yellowish layer of fat. To further confirm, paleontologists compared the subcutaneous tissue with today's dolphins and leatherback turtles and found that the structure was the same, which proved that the narrow-winged ichthyosaur had a fatty layer. The role of the fat layer is to keep warm, while also storing energy and increasing buoyancy. This layer of "fat meat" from 180 million years ago proves that narrow-winged ichthyosaurs are warm-blooded animals like the cetaceans in the oceans today!
<h1>Restore the original color of the narrow-winged ichthyosaur</h1>
Although our restored narrow-winged ichthyosaur has been very precise, its color is conjectured. This study of the fossils of the narrow-winged Ichthyosaur found not only the fat layer under the skin, but also the melanocytes. The scientific name of melanosome is melanosome, and the arrangement of the pigment particles inside it determines the color.
Caption: Regarding the latest body color restoration of narrow-winged ichthyosaurs, the image is from National Geographic Chinese Network
Based on the black cells preserved in the fossils, paleontologists have successfully restored the color of various particles, including the Chinese dragon bird, the near bird dragon, and the parrot-billed dragon, but it is the first time that melanocytes have been found in the ichthyosaur fossils. The research team used high-resolution spectroscopes and X-ray techniques to scan the fossil's melanin, reshaping a three-dimensional model of narrow-winged ichthyosaur melanocytes. Studies have shown that the body color distribution of narrow-winged ichthyosaurs is similar to that of today's marine organisms, with a darker back color and a lighter color on the abdomen, which is not only easy to conceal, but also able to regulate body temperature.
The study of narrow-winged ichthyosaur was published in the journal Nature in the form of a paper titled "Soft-tissue evidence for homeothermy and crypsis in a Jurassic ichthyosaur." In the study, The American paleontologist Mary Schweitzer, who participated in the study, also proposed that primitive proteins were found in the fossils, and further research on these proteins will reveal more secrets about ichthyosaurs.
Image note: Narrow-winged ichthyosaurs swimming in shallow waters will bring us more surprises, the image comes from the Internet
bibliography:
1.Michael W. Maisch and Andreas T. Matzke (2000). "The Ichthyosauria" (PDF). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde: Serie B. 298: 1–159. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-18.
2.Michael W. Maisch (2008). "Revision der Gattung Stenopterygius Jaekel, 1904 emend. von Huene, 1922 (Reptilia: Ichthyosauria) aus dem unteren Juras Westeuropas" (PDF). Palaeodiversity. 1: 227–271.
3.Huene F. from 1939. A whole ichthyosaur skeleton from the Western Swiss Prealps. Mitteilungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Bern 1939, pp.: 1-14
4.Lindgren, Johan; Sjövall, Peter; Thiel, Volker; Zheng, Wenxia; Ito, Shosuke; Wakamatsu, Kazumasa; Hauff, Rolf; Kear, Benjamin P.; Engdahl, Anders; Alwmark, Carl; Eriksson, Mats E.; Jarenmark, Martin; Sachs, Sven; Ahlberg, Per E.; Marone, Federica; Kuriyama, Takeo; Gustafsson, Ola; Malmberg, Per; Thomen, Aurélien; Rodríguez-Meizoso, Irene; Uvdal, Per; Ojika, Makoto; Schweitzer, Mary H. (2018). "Soft-tissue evidence for homeothermy and crypsis in a Jurassic ichthyosaur". Nature. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0775-x.
Photo / Part of the network (intrusion and deletion)
Text / Paleontological Exploration (Jiang Hong)
Typography / Paleontological exploration