Predator X Was The Most Fearsome Animal To Swin The Ocean

[AeroMike]

I just read this in the news.

A marine monster described as the most fearsome animal ever to swim in the oceans boasted a bite up to 11 times as strong as that of Tyrannosaurus rex.

The fossil remains of the huge pliosaur were dug up last summer from the permafrost on Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole.

Analysis revealed that it was a turbo-charged swimmer. Its front flippers allowed the creature, dubbed Predator X, to cruise along comfortably but when prey came into range the power of its hind flippers kicked in to provide extra acceleration.

Measurements of its jaw and the killing power of its dagger-like teeth have shown that it could bite down with a force of 33,000 pounds per square inch compared with T. rex’s 3,000lb per square inch. Alligators have the strongest bite today with about 2,500 pounds per square inch.

Researchers have been astonished by the size of the reptile, which exceeded even that of another pliosaur, called The Monster, which was found at the same site a year earlier.

Predator X is thought to have been at least 50 feet long, perhaps more, and measurements of its bulk suggest that it would have weighed in at 45 tons.

Its discovery was announced yesterday in Oslo by Jørn Hurum, of the University of Oslo, who led the expedition to dig up the remains. At least 20,000 fragments have been recovered including most of the jaws, which were 10 feet long. Dr Hurum said: “It was the most ferocious hunter ever. It’s like a turbo-charged predator. This is a very, very large carnivore.”

[Auspex]

Q: What does a 9,000 pound Pliosaur eat?

A: <Fill in the usual comedic retort>

Seriously though, what would the prey base be for a predator like that? Was it equipped to bite off chunks of huge things, or did it subsist on large numbers of merely big things? There's a food-chain axiom in biology that it takes 10 lbs. of prey to make one pound of predator, which is one reason why there are so few individuals at the top.

Does the fossil record offer any clues?

[Guest solius symbiosus]

Do you have a link? Dr. Hurum has been working this site for years. Here is an old BBC report on a similar find:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5403570.stm

[Guest solius symbiosus]

Last night while watching Ancient Battles on The History Channel I saw a promo for a documentary that they had made about this find. It will be aired in the US on March 29. Their web page has some interesting content... including a promo video.

http://www.history.com/content/predatorx

Too, I found this press release on the University of Oslo's website:

Scientists have discovered one of the largest marine predators ever found

Press release: It has been announced in Oslo today that an international team of paleontologists have unearthed the partial skull of a 50 ft marine reptile on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard . Dubbed 'Predator X', the marine reptile is a new species of pliosaur, an apex predator that patrolled the Jurassic oceans 147 million years ago. The skull, 'the jewel in the crown for paleontologists', was excavated from the Arctic permafrost during a 2-week field expedition in June 2008, led by Dr. Jørn Hurum from the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo. He was joined by eleven other expedition members, including Dr. Patrick Druckenmiller, a world authority on marine reptiles from the University of Alaska Museum of the North.

The scientists first hit the headlines in August 2007, when they excavated the skeleton of another pliosaur specimen in the same locality. On the last day of the 2007 expedition, Dr. Hurum spotted large bones in the earth. The team placed a marker, took a GPS reading and returned the following summer to excavate. Little did they realize that this new fossil would be even bigger and more significant than the pliosaur they had discovered the year before.

New scientific research reveals that Predator X was approximately 50ft long, weighed in at 45 tons and packed an amazing 33,000lb bite. Its anatomy, physiology and hunting strategy all point to it being the ultimate predator - the most dangerous creature to patrol the Earth's oceans.

Following its excavation in August, several months of cleaning and studying the specimen have revealed…

The size of the skull was confirmed by the discovery of the bassioccipital condyle, a spherical bone present in all mammals and reptiles that connects the base of the skull to the vertebral column. The robust bone was preserved extremely well, allowing comparison with other species and animals. Dr. Hurum explained, 'The condyle we have found measures 6 inches in diameter, the largest condyle of any known pliosaur species. By comparison, the condyle of a T-Rex measures just 3 inches across - Predator X's skull was at least double the size.' Along with the skull, the team retrieved 20,000 fragments of the pliosaur's skeleton, which are being stabilized and glued together by a dedicated team of students and volunteers at the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo.

To determine how Predator X used its four huge flippers to pursue and kill its prey, Dr. Hurum called in specialist help from biologist Frank Fish at West Chester University , PA , mechanical engineer Laurens Howle at Duke University , NC and biologist John Long at Vassar College , NY . By calculating the hydrodynamic properties of the flippers using a wind tunnel, Frank and Laurens were able to calculate that Predator X could generate enough power from only 2 flippers to move through the water - the question was, why did it have four?

Further tests were conducted by John Long at Vassar College with four-flippered robot 'Madeleine.' Firstly they used the data already gathered to calculate Predator X's weight for the first time - at 45 tons. The following experiments revealed that when using four flippers, Predator X may have been able to accelerate faster, at the cost of high energy consumption. These results suggest that Predator X could have used its front 2 flippers for cruising, but employed all four flippers when it hunted to accelerate towards its unsuspecting prey.

Dr. Patrick Druckenmiller from the University of Alaska Museum CT scanned a pliosaur skull, loaned from the Natural History Museum in London . This was a unique opportunity to analyze its brain shape and development for clues about Predator X's hunting capabilities and locomotion. Due to the density and size of the pliosaur skull Patrick had to use an industrial CT scanner. The scan produced a graphical representation of a pliosaur brain, adding valuable data to a completely new field of pliosaur research, and demonstrating that the pliosaur had a small, elongated brain but one that was perfectly specialized for a killing machine. The shape and (proportional) size of the brain bears a resembles to another apex predator: the great white shark.

At St Augustine Alligator Farm and Zoological Park in Florida , Dr. Hurum assisted evolutionary biologist Dr. Greg Erickson from Florida State University in calculating the bite force of this colossal creature. The jaws held in place a set of trihedral teeth, each measuring 12 inches, which clamped down on prey with an estimated 33,000lbs of bite force. The calculation is one of the largest bite forces ever calculated for any creature. Predator X would have had a bite a bite force was more than ten times the bite force of any animal alive today and four times the bite force of a T- Rex.

All the scientific results will be published in a full scientific paper later this year.

[Martijn]

http://www.dagbladet.no/tv/index.html?clipid=30980

Greetings from Norway!

Martijn

[Guest N.AL.hunter]

It's really no surprise that the largest predators came from the seas. Same is true for today. But watching that video really makes me feel like a fossil collecting wimp. I can't believe where they went to find this thing. And I complain about cool temps and a little bit of rain.

[Mike Owens]

Q: What does a 9,000 pound Pliosaur eat?

A: <Fill in the usual comedic retort>

Seriously though, what would the prey base be for a predator like that? Was it equipped to bite off chunks of huge things, or did it subsist on large numbers of merely big things? There's a food-chain axiom in biology that it takes 10 lbs. of prey to make one pound of predator, which is one reason why there are so few individuals at the top.

Does the fossil record offer any clues?

A lot less than a 90,000# one.

[Auspex]

A lot less than a 90,000# one.

Uh...OOPS!

[Carl O'Cles]

Seriously though, what would the prey base be for a predator like that? Was it equipped to bite off chunks of huge things, or did it subsist on large numbers of merely big things? There's a food-chain axiom in biology that it takes 10 lbs. of prey to make one pound of predator, which is one reason why there are so few individuals at the top.

Does the fossil record offer any clues?

Weren't there loads of ammonites during the Jurassic and didn't some of them grow to massive sizes?? They may have been eating these amongst other things. This might explain why the had such a massive bite force since they had to bite through the tough shells. Just a thought

[Shamalama]

Thanks for posting this, I'm scanning thru my DVR now trying to see if it will let me set up the recording.

Weren't there loads of ammonites during the Jurassic and didn't some of them grow to massive sizes?? They may have been eating these amongst other things. This might explain why the had such a massive bite force since they had to bite through the tough shells. Just a thought

I agree with Carl, it was either loads of huge Ammonites or other Pliosaurs/Plesiosaurs/Mosasaurs. It's obviously an apex predator, but the real questions is did all members of this species get this big or was this a fluke case?

[Guest solius symbiosus]

I saw a pic of a big ol' ammonite that had teeth marks from a plesiosaur across the test a few day ago. I will see of I can find it.

[Carl O'Cles]

It's obviously an apex predator, but the real questions is did all members of this species get this big or was this a fluke case?

Very good question, was this size the norm for this species or was this guy the andrea the giant of pliosaurs

[Guest solius symbiosus]

The probability of a "mutant" being preserved, and then found, has to approach ∞⁻¹ .

[Carl O'Cles]

The probability of a "mutant" being preserved, and then found, has to approach ∞⁻¹ .

I agree, but i am still holding out hope for that 12" megalodon tooth

[mommabetts]

Wow can you try to imagine trying to feed that thing every day? Maybe that is why it died, it eat everything!!!!!!!!!!

[Boesse]

Dr. Druckenmiller is actually a close friend of mine; I took a class from him here at MSU a couple years ago on marine reptiles, and about a decade ago he was here at MSU doing his master's thesis.

Keep in mind that there are plenty of gigantic marine predators alive in the ocean today - sperm whales, for one, are 60 feet long (used to be up to 75); and technically speaking, baleen whales are predators (and many often feed on schools of fish).

Bobby

[TygerTyger]

Dr. Druckenmiller is actually a close friend of mine; I took a class from him here at MSU a couple years ago on marine reptiles, and about a decade ago he was here at MSU doing his master's thesis.

Keep in mind that there are plenty of gigantic marine predators alive in the ocean today - sperm whales, for one, are 60 feet long (used to be up to 75); and technically speaking, baleen whales are predators (and many often feed on schools of fish).

Bobby

That's a good point. It's easy to get away with the dimensions of this animal within a prehistoric context but then forget that we have comparable animals out there in the oceans today!