New Zealand’s dinosaur fossil notes are poor, with only a few bones, but an extraordinary old-fashioned marine reptile collection, including Mosasaur like a long-necked shark and plesiaus.
Plesiosaurus first appeared in the fossil record of around 200 million years ago and died, with dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.
They are famous for their fantastic but interesting ideas, suggested by British scientists Sir Peter Scott, that Monster Loch Ness Fable is actually a plesioSaur that somehow exceeded all other giant reptiles and still not detected throughout human history.
In a recent research project, we used medical CT imaging to scan fossils of plesioosus who were collected in New Zealand in 1872.
Scanning revealed new detail levels, confirming that Most Plesionsaurs with their heads, different from Loch Ness beings, and show relationships Close between New Zealand fossils and South American specimens from 70 million years ago.
In 1872, Director of the Canterbury Museum Julius Von Haast hired Scottish geologists who were lifted by Alexander McKay to conduct geological surveys and collect fossils.
Von Haast has heard that Explorer and Amateur Scientists Thomas Cockburn-Hood have found significant reptile fossils in Waipara Gorge, in the Canterbury region.
The cockburn-hood described the area as a “Saurian bed”, and we now know the sea sediment nourishes fossil-fossils from 70 million years ago.
McKay went to Waipara during the 1872 winter, and he was very successful, gathered several frameworks for some marine reptiles and hundreds of bones.
Among these ingredients are two groups of bones that are rather unimpressive, compressed, semi-round.
It sits in the Canterbury Museum warehouse, unknown and stuck in the bokon they dig, for more than 120 years.
It took time in the late 1990s to realize the importance of fossils.
The famous Fossil Museum and collector of Al Caring and his colleagues prepared both unloved fossils, decapitating stones to reveal the bones contained in the rocks.
Visiting English scientists Arthur Cruickshank believes these fossils is extraordinary and may be similar to the material of the plesioSaurus he has seen from South America.
In 2004, the Canterbury Geological Curator Museum Norton Hiller and Cantul published a paper, where they suggested two groups of bones, soccer size, actually two sides of the same animal skull – one very similar to Plesionsaurs from South America.
In 2014, international reptile experts who were famous internationally Rodrigo Otero (Universidad de Chile) and Jose O’Gorman (Museo de la Plata (Argentina) visited New Zealand and examined specimens.
They concluded Hiller and the right bar.
The two parts are indeed From the same animals and Waipara fossils are most similar to a group of plesioosurs who until now are only known from Chile and Argentina.
They describe the specimens of the Canterbury Museum completely and give them the scientific name Alexandronect Zealandiensis, Latin for Alexander swimmers from Zealandia.
Science and technology continue and team O’Gorman wants to confirm the relationship of the evolution of Alexandronects Zealandensis, using the latest technology.
In 2019, I took two fossils to the hospital to be scanned, using the latest Dual Energy CT scanner in St.
George’s Radiology in Christchurch.
The results are extraordinary, showing anatomical features Previously invisible.
Without a text Ologi scanning CT, this detail can only be seen by destroying fossils.
We examined the ears of the part of the creature and concluded, based on ear orientation, that he maintained a posture where his head was used to holding perpendicular to the body or only a little under the body (unlike fans of Monster Loch Ness would nurture, up in the air like doll socks ).
We also saw the features known as stapes, also not seen in PlesioSaurus until then.
Stapes are a small umbrella bone in the middle ear that transmits the vibration of the eardrum to the inside ear.
This work allows us to conclude that Alexandronects Zealandensis is unusual plesioosaurus.
It belongs to the unique group of the South Southern Hemisphere Plesosaurus is now called Aristonectinae.
This group is part of the PlesioSaur family known as ElalasArs.
They are the last experiment in the evolution of the PlesioSaur, with the longest neck of all plesioasurs.