New fossils reveal specialized eating technique of unusual ancient marine reptile

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. CNN — An unusual ancient marine reptile may have gulped down tons of shrimplike prey using a feeding technique similar to one used by some modern whales. “This construction is only seen otherwise in modern baleen whales where the loose structure of the snout and lower jaws allows them to support a huge throat region that balloons out enormously as they swim forward, engulfing small prey.” Fossil evidence of filter feeding Researchers compared the Hupehsuchus skull with 130 modern skulls from a range of aquatic animals, which included 23 seal species, 14 crocodilians, 52 toothed whales, 25 birds, the platypus and 15 species of baleen whale. “Modern baleen whales have no teeth, unlike the toothed whales such as dolphins and orcas,” said study coauthor Li Tian, assistant researcher at the China University of Geosciences Wuhan, in a statement. “The hupesuchians lived in the Early Triassic, about 248 million years ago, in China and they were part of a huge and rapid re-population of the oceans,” said study coauthor Michael Benton, professor of vertebrate palaeontology in the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, in a statement.