With its body obscured by murky waters, an ancient fanged reptile may have used its long neck to lunge at fish and squid. The scenario is based on analysis of a 230-million-year-old fossil discovered in southeastern China.
The new creature appeared long before the dinosaurs and is named Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, which means ‘terrible headed lizard from the Orient.’ It was a protorosaur, part of an order of diverse, predatory reptiles that lived as far back as 280 million years ago.
This nearly complete skeleton (top) of a Middle Triassic marine reptile includes a skull and a hind limb that indicate the animal lived mainly in water. This long-necked sea creature (bottom) lived more than 230 million years ago in present-day southeast China and probably fed on fish and squid.
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