(Photo: TAKUMI)
It’s hard to imagine what life was like when dinosaurs roamed the planet.
The fossils were unearthed near the Aridagawa River in Wakayama Prefecture in 2006.
The skeletal remains make it the most complete mosasaur ever found in Japan or the northwestern Pacific.
The “Wakayama soryu” was a mosasaur the size of a great white shark, with a dorsal fin and long flippers. (Photo: TAKUMI)
However, it is also unlike other mosasaur fossils found.
The Japanese species has longer rear flippers than front ones, which measure longer than its head.
I thought I knew them quite well by now, Konishi continued.
Life restoration of a mosasaur—not the one found in Japan. (Photo: Dmitry Bogdanov viaWikimedia Commons,CC BY 3.0 DEED)
Immediately it was something I had never seen before.
Mosasaurs lived during the era of the T-Rex and other well-known dinosaurs.
However, while its contemporaries dominated land, the mosasaur hunted underwater.
None has four large flippers they use in conjunction with a tail fin.
It opens a whole can of worms that challenges our understanding of how mosasaurs swim.
72-million-year-old fossils belonging to a previously unknown species of mosasaur were discovered in Japan.
Life restoration of a mosasaurnot the one found in Japan.
