Pliosaurs and Plesiosaurs
Pliosaurs came in a range of sizes and differed from plesiosaurs
in not having long snake-like necks. The large pliosaurs were
as big as whales,
but unlike whales, they were aggressive carnivores with vicious teeth.
It’s thought that they even attacked the big slower moving
plesiosaurs.
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Ichthyosaurs
Ichthyosaurs looked like dolphins. But you could say that that dolphins
look like ichthyosaurs because after all, ichthyosaurs were the first
animals to have that body shape. At the time Ichthyosaurs were
catching fish and coming up for air, the mammals from which dolphins
are descended were still small furry creatures living on land.
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Ammonites
There were strange animals related to present day squid called ammonites
that swam around in enormous shells the size of truck tyres.
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Belemnites
Belemnites were squid-like animals that
looked like cuttlefish and became extinct along with the dinosaurs
65 million years ago.
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Glendonites and drop stones
The rocks that have been found on the ancient
seabed provide important clues about how cold the sea was.
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Kronosaurus
Kronosaurus queenslandicus is a sort of large short-necked
marine reptile called a pliosaur.
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Turtles
One of the commonest marine animals in the Eromanga Sea was
a turtle called Nothochelone costata. They were very like the turtles
of today
and reached about a metre in length. They are the great survivors from
the era.
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Starfish, shells and crinoids
Crinoids, or sea lilies, are not as common today as they were 100
million years ago. Like starfish, they are one of a large group of
sea creatures called echinoderms.
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Survivors
But some of the ancient sea creatures are familiar to us today. There were fish,
turtles, starfish and many sorts of shellfish that we can still find today.
Why they survived and the marine reptiles vanished is still not completely
understood. |
