CHICAGO, IL.- An international team of scientists has described
a fossil marine predator measuring 8.6 meters in length (about
28 feet) recovered from the Nevada desert in 2010 as
representing the first top predator in marine food chains
feeding on prey similar to its own size. A paper with their
description appears this week in the EE (early electronic) issue
of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists
who studied the fossil include lead author Dr. Nadia Fröbisch
and Prof. Jörg Fröbisch (both at Museum für Naturkunde Leibniz-
Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung), Prof. P.
Martin Sander (Steinmann Institute of Geology, Mineralogy, and
Paleontology, Division of Paleontology, University of Bonn),
Prof. Lars Schmitz (W. M. Keck Science Department, Claremont
McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges, Claremont, California)
and Dr. Olivier Rieppel (The Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois).
The 244-million-year-old fossil, named Thalattoarchon
saurophagis (lizard-eating sovereign of the s