German paleontologist Martin Sander had spent his summers in Nevada for around 20 years, growing in the experience of spectacular finds during the last few days of each trip. On October 3, 2011, he spotted the fossil of an ichthyosaur spine with evidence that it had been pregnant when it died. Paleontology advancement in Reno, Nevada had been possible due to a passionate craft brewer, Tom Young.
'The trick is you have to know what you are looking for,' shared Sander, who described as he was 'wandering around in the field,' for the last time. It was not until another expedition in 2014 that they were able to excavate the rest of the prehistoric creature's remains. It was only this April that Sander and his team were able to publish their findings.
It is the only specimen, or holotype, discovered with a complete skull. Body reconstruction estimates the ichthyosaur to be about 12 feet. Smaller vertebrae in her trunk region represent at least three fetuses.
Ichthyosaurs are an aquatic group of extinct reptiles that resemble porpoises in both appearance and habit. They are a distant relative of snakes and lizards living during the Early Triassic era, but is not a dinosaur species, and may possibly have descended from distant relatives of turtles.
Martina the Ichthyosaur
Ichthyosaur means 'fish lizard' and Ichthyopterygia means 'fish paddle.' The earliest species of this marine animal had long, flexible bodies and swam like eels. An advanced species had more compact, fishlike bodies with a crescent tail, like tunas and mackerels.
Although multiple fossil discoveries showed evidence of pregnancy, they seemed to generally give birth in water. However, they lacked gills, similar to whales, and still needed to breathe air.
Sander's new discovery makes a new, fourth genus of the species, the Cymbospondylus duelferi, unique to the Nevada area. Named Martina, the paleontologist said that 'it is the first big thing that lived on this earth.'
Martina is about 246 million years old 3 million years younger than the oldest ichthyosaur specimen from China. As large as she is, compared to other species at 60 feet, Martina is significantly smaller. However, her teeth were quite large, not what the scientists expected with a smaller body.
Beer and Paleontology
Sander shared that what's cool about the ichthyosaur is that 'they just diversified crazily fast.' Findings from Martina reveal that they have evolved to giving birth to live young from previously laying eggs. This became an advantage for living underwater.
'Most of the reptiles that returned to the sea, they all evolved this ability from egg laying to giving birth to live young,' explained Sander. It is an advantage they had over turtles, who left their young endangered near the shore.
Tom Young, a craft brewer, and former geologist aided Sander's team in the discovery. In fact, it was his beer truck that hauled the skull from Augusta Mountains to its new home in the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History.
Young, the owner of Great Basin Brewing, also has a mission to make paleontology popular in Nevada with his financial support and beer for researchers. 'It is so important we preserve this and study these things to show where we are today and how we got here...you marvel as a human and realize the importance of our being here now, but at the same time you are looking at us as part of this much larger, huge universe.'
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