Recently, researchers discovered a fossil of a huge flying reptile that could eat all the prey it caught whole and, as they say, not choke. And we are talking about "food" the size of a modern horse.

The remains of an ancient creature were discovered in Transylvania - the famous historical region in Romania. Experts suggest that the find is about 66-70 million years old.

Researchers say they have found a fossilized cervical vertebra of Hatzegopteryx, a genus of pterosaurs from the azhdarchid family that lived during the Upper Cretaceous era (70.6 - 66 million years ago) in what is now Romania.

Experts describe them as creatures with a short but massive neck and large jaws. That is, the animal was able to swallow little man or a child.

The size of the found fossilized vertebra is approximately 240 millimeters in length and six millimeters in thickness. And it was the study of the characteristics of the find that allowed scientists to assume that hatzegopteryx could eat not only dinosaurs the size of rats, but also larger individuals. So the diet of pterosaurs clearly needs to be reconsidered.

Paleontologists clarify that Hatzegopteryx was a pterosaur that existed during the time of the dinosaurs. Initially, scientists believed that pterosaurs fed on rather small prey, such as baby dinosaurs the size of rats. But new fossils show that individual large pterosaurs did not shun even more big booty- horse-sized dinosaurs, for example.

Pterosaurs grew quite massive and large during the late Cretaceous period - the last geological era when dinosaurs existed on Earth. One of the best-known pterosaur fossils is the Quetzalcoatlus, found in Texas, USA. Its wingspan reached 10-12 meters, but the creature itself, as scientists have established, fed on mollusks.

Quetzalcoatl also belonged to the azhdarchid family. And in general, scientists believed that the animals of this family had approximately the same body structure - long paws, neck and wings. But the recently discovered fossil of Chacegopteryx made them rethink their views.

Hatzegopteryx had a rather short but large neck, which was nevertheless much more powerful than that of other azhdarchids. An ancient creature with powerful wings (the span of which was up to 12 meters) weighed almost a quarter of a ton. The researchers say that Hatzegopteryx could even be called a dangerous pterosaur due to its huge jaw.

A study on an ancient creature with huge jaws is published in the scientific publication Peer J.

It is no secret that during the existence of our planet the world of flora and fauna has changed several times. Dinosaurs did not survive to our times, but their existence is confirmed by numerous excavations.

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Types of dinosaurs, their classification

Paleontologists claim that dinosaurs inhabited our planet for over a hundred million years. Scientists came to such conclusions after many years of excavations, which allowed them to invade the bowels of the earth and find numerous remains of giant birds and animals there. What was the reality in those days, one can only guess.

Today we will take a closer look at what varieties of dinosaurs are, and what information about them is available today. In general, when you start to be interested in these animals, it is amazing how much paleontologists know, and no one has ever seen these animals with their own eyes. Now these are the heroes of horror films, fairy tales for children, and so on, it is thanks to the artists that we have a clear idea of ​​​​how such unusual creatures really looked like. Very often different dinosaurs are compared to dragons.

Scientists, unfortunately, have not been able to come to a unanimous conclusion why dinosaurs suddenly died out on our planet. Although not only dinosaurs disappeared in that era, but also many inhabitants underwater world. One theory says that it is not the Earth that has changed dramatically climatic conditions, and dinosaurs could not live in a new environment, so one by one they began to die. The second theory (more realistic) says that 65 million years ago a huge asteroid crashed into our planet, which destroyed many earthly creatures.

We will not go into details about why huge creatures disappeared from the face of the Earth, it will be much more interesting to talk about what paleontologists know today. And they know a lot, from the remains they managed to establish which dinosaurs existed, to report approximately how many species there were, and also to give them certain names.

For the first time, the English biologist Richard Owen spoke about dinosaurs, it was he who called animals by this term (by the way, “dinosaur” is translated from Greek as a terrible lizard). Until 1843, scientists did not put forward theories about the existence of dinosaurs. Their remains were attributed to either dragons or other giant mythical animals.

Now the list of species is simply huge and each genus has its own name. For example, you will be interested to know what are the two largest and most ancient groups of these animals. Maybe the names will seem funny to someone, but these are lizard and ornithischian creatures. Next, we list the most famous and, in our opinion, the main species or types of dinosaurs. Do not be surprised that representatives of the most famous breeds could perfectly swim, fly, and not just move on land. A lot of information was studied by scientists before they could draw conclusions that dinosaurs can be divided into such groups:

• predatory;
• herbivores;
• flying;
• water.

Paleontologists knew exactly how to distinguish one type from another, they carried out more and more research, as a result of which the world learned about trinosaurs, ichthosaurs, pliosaurs, tyrannosaurs, ornithocheirs and so on.

The exact number of species of dinosaurs that existed cannot be established, and it is unlikely that this will ever be known. There are many nuances in the study of fossils. The number of varieties is said to range from 250 to 550 and these numbers are constantly changing. For example, some species have only been identified from the excavation of a single tooth or vertebra. Over time, scientists realize that some species that were previously considered different can actually be attributed to the same thing. So no one can draw firm conclusions. Perhaps most types of dinosaurs exist only in the fantasy of paleontologists and other sensationalists. But since these huge creatures have disappeared from our planet, it means that it was necessary. Nothing happens by chance, and especially the extinction of real giant predators.

Swimming dinosaur: myth or reality?

Paleontologists claim that aquatic dinosaurs nevertheless existed. To be honest, the population of the seas and oceans in those days was not so harmless. Aquatic fish dinosaurs would happily eat everyone. And they can not even compare with the most dangerous sharks today. The size of the monsters exceeded the size of modern whales. Huge animals could happily eat, for example, another dinosaur, which, by chance, was at the wrong time in the wrong place. Some fish grew up to 25 m (for comparison, a standard nine-story building is 30 m).

Sea monsters were classified as follows:

• plesiosaurus (a long-necked creature that lived all the time under water, sometimes surfaced to breathe air or grab a flying bird);
• elasmosaurus weighed about 500 kg, had a small but movable head on a huge (8 m) neck;
• mosasaurs lived in the seas and oceans, but moved a little like a snake;
• ichthyosaurs are very warlike and bloodthirsty animals that lived and hunted in packs. There were practically no insurmountable obstacles for them;
• the notosaurus led a dual lifestyle (on land and in water), eating small creatures and fish;
• Liopleurodon lived exclusively in aquatic environment, could hold their breath for several hours, dive to the depths and hunt there;
• Shonisaurus is a completely harmless reptile that was an excellent hunter and fed on mollusks, octopuses, and squids.

Very little is known about the existence of two-headed creatures, many types of dinosaurs were with long claws that helped them move faster. Some types of large marine inhabitants were:

• with a collar around the neck;
• with a hood;
• with a crest on the back (sometimes with two crests);
• with spikes;
• with a tuft on his head;
• with a mace on the tail.

Herbivorous dinosaurs: their classification

This is most likely the most peaceful species of huge creatures. They quietly chewed weed, were happy and entered the fight solely for the purpose of self-defense. Rarely have herbivorous creatures attacked first. At the same time, dinosaurs of this type were not at all weak, defenseless animals. A powerful skeleton, huge horns, a tail with a mace, unrealistically huge sizes, strong limbs that could immediately strike on the spot - all these are the characteristics of completely peaceful animals.

There were several types of herbivorous creatures:

• stegosaurus - they had peculiar combs on their bodies, chewed grass, from time to time swallowed stones to improve digestion;
• euplocephalus, which was covered with spikes, a bone shell and had a mace on its tail. This is a truly terrible monster;
• brachiosaurus - could eat about a ton of greens in just a day;
• triceratops had beaks, horns, lived in herds, easily defended themselves from enemies;
• hadrosaurs were quite large, but very vulnerable, it is still a mystery how they survived.

This is not a complete list of species of grass dinosaurs.

carnivorous dinosaurs

Yet most dinosaurs were predators by nature. They had a powerful body structure, huge teeth, horns, shells. All this allowed animals to rise above other living beings, often dinosaurs fought with their relatives. The strongest always won, there was no question of any family ties. Tyrannosaurus rex was considered the most popular predator, you can find a lot about it interesting information, watch the video. Tirex is the hero of many horror films, because this born hunter was really scary, disgusting, ruthless, bloodthirsty.

Dinosaur with a long neck (name and species)

Among herbivorous, marine and predatory species, there were breeds that were distinguished by unrealistically long necks. For example, diplodocus is a herbivore creature whose neck consisted of 15 vertebrae. He could easily get branches from the tallest trees.

Flying species or dinosaur birds did indeed have wings, scales, sometimes even feathers. A feature of these creatures were huge very sharp teeth, which cannot be said about modern birds. These are pterodactyls, pterosaurs, archeopteryxes. Ornithocheirus was the size of a small plane, had a light skeleton, a crest on its beak. Such "birds" lived near large reservoirs.

Quite informative, and also interesting to read about the inhabitants of the Jurassic period, isn't it? At that time, the population of the Earth was completely different, terrible and incomprehensible to us, its modern inhabitants.

When dinosaur bones were found in bags in the USA and Canada, in Russia they could not boast of at least one or two vertebrae of ancient animals. The fact is that during the Jurassic and Cretaceous period, the territory of present-day Russia was flooded with shallow seas. Dinosaurs lived here too, but finding their remains was more difficult - water and stones ground their bones into dust. Skeletons were preserved in swamps and volcanic ash, but glaciers turned the earth into mush, and glacial waters eroded what was left. But Russian scientists have adapted to such difficult conditions. Now scattered bones of dinosaurs are found on Far East, and in the Moscow region. Pavel Skuchas is professionally engaged in this - candidate biological sciences, specialist in Mesozoic vertebrates, associate professor at St. Petersburg State University. Pavel described a new genus of giant dinosaurs - tengrisaurs, and then a new dinosaur - Siberian Titan, which roamed the territory of modern Russia 120 million years ago. Agatha Korovina talked to Pavel about what dinosaurs we eat for dinner, what Mickey Mouse and amphibians have in common, how humans will change in the future, and whether we will ever be able to herd a dinosaur in the backyard.

If a paleontologist walks through the forest with a girl who is not a paleontologist, what does he see, what will he tell her, given his professional deformation?

If a girl is a biologist, then you can afford a lot ... Dinosaurs have a bright feature - their legs are located under the body, slender, while in a lizard, for example, everything sticks out from the side, it moves in a waddle. And you can compliment the girl: "You have legs like a dinosaur." The unshoeed one will hit you in the face, and the savvy one will rejoice that good couple, sagittal staging of limbs.

- And around? We see forest belts, writhing, cliffs, and what do you see?

The brain reacts to careers, especially when you are on a train. You immediately remember the geological map, the age of the rocks. Sometimes paleontologists jump off the train, run and find interesting things. And the second moment, when you come back from the expedition, it’s very good to look for mushrooms later. It's easier than bones. Because bones are sometimes one centimeter, teeth - one and a half to two millimeters.

- What's a superpower? How do you find them?

There is a special approach. Bone-bearing rock is collected, ideally some kind of sand, sandstone. A small handful is thrown into a sieve, and you begin to gently rinse it in water. Small grains of sand, turbidity float away, stones and bones remain. And this is where you start to choose. When the eye is trained, one and a half to two millimeters of a tooth is normal, you find it. To find something from jurassic, one eye is no longer enough. What remains in the sieve is dried, and then we examine it under a microscope.

- You restored Tengrisaurus by several vertebrae. How is this possible?

Reconstruction of the appearance of fossil organisms based on small remains, for example, on two vertebrae, is very approximate. The closest relatives of this dinosaur are identified, for which a whole skeleton is known. One can understand whether the dinosaur was 10-12 meters, as in the case of our Siberian sauropod dinosaurs, or it was a giant. Scientific workers based on published articles. Sometimes for clarification family ties more than one hundred or two hundred signs are used.

- But the difference will still be: a different jaw, different muscles ...

Indeed, therefore, any reconstruction based on an incomplete skeleton is a convention and an assumption.

When paleontologists describe isolated bones in their work, they do not reconstruct the appearance. This is already the prerogative of people who are interested in paleontology.

It's great that some wonderful paleoillustrators and paleoartists have appeared in Russia. One of them, for example, Andrey Atuchin.

The voice of some dinosaurs was reconstructed. There is a group of dinosaurs that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period, they are called duck-billed dinosaurs, or hadrosaurs. They were herbivores, quite peaceful, although large, 5-6 meters, walked on their hind legs, and the males had hollow crests on their heads that connected to the nasopharynx. The idea arose that it was a resonator. Created a model, blew, got some kind of sound. This is hardly a perfect match, because soft tissue must be taken into account, but we still roughly understand how the dinosaurs screamed.

- Why did these three vertebrae remain, what about the rest of the skeleton?

Fossils, especially those of Mesozoic age, were often preserved under very specific conditions. Usually it is a body of water: lake, river, sea. There is a current in the river, so skeletons in river sediments are usually not preserved, they are carried away by water, they begin to fall apart, and isolated remains are found here.

The desert is ideal for a paleontologist. We worked in Uzbekistan, there are wonderful outcrops of ancient rocks, and dinosaur bones can be collected like mushrooms.

We have forests. You can find something on the banks of rivers, where a cliff is formed, or in active or abandoned quarries. For example, coal is mined, and on top - layers containing the remains of dinosaurs. This also happens.

When I talked with, they said that they describe their findings, and photograph, and sketch, and make computer models - because they don’t know what will turn out to be important later, because they might miss something now. Do you have something that you are not sure about, but you just save it?

Of course, this works especially with isolated residues. There are still bones, we do not understand whose they are. In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, very small vertebrae with processes in the form of a lancet, a rhombus were found - there is nothing similar in the modern fauna. We can't even identify the group. We only understand that this is some kind of reptile. I showed at conferences: “Colleagues, please, what is this?” (this is a normal practice when a paleontologist does not understand anything at all). And so far no one has said anything. But we published an article, and when, for example, in the UK they find the skeleton of an animal with the same processes on its vertebrae, they will immediately remember our find, and the problem will be solved. If you can't solve a problem, put this problem to everyone - let everyone think.

- Where can you find dinosaur bones in Russia?

Can be listed on the fingers of one hand. A unique place - Chebulinsky district in Kemerovo region. There are a lot of river sediments, and there is the Shestakovo locality, where whole skeletons have been preserved. Other places - suburbs of the city of Blagoveshchensk in the Far East, south Krasnoyarsk Territory, Chita region. The bones that are in Shestakovo are very fragile.

Even if you find a skeleton and start picking with your finger, everything will quickly fall apart. Specialists had to impregnate each bone with special glue. The skeleton is not pulled out of the rock, the rock is coated with plaster and boarded up with boards, this is called “taking it as a monolith”, and taken to the laboratory, where it is then cleared away.

- How did it happen that the bones of dinosaurs are in the UK, and in the Chebulinsky region, and in Antarctica?

The configuration of the continents is constantly changing. When the dawn of the dinosaurs began, the Jurassic period, all the continents were united into a single supercontinent - Pangea. And the composition of faunas in different parts of the globe was very similar. The fauna of Great Britain in the middle of the Jurassic and Western Siberia is almost identical, and these are long distances. Then Pangea split into the northern continent - Laurasia, which included Europe, Asia and North America, and Gondwana - a group of southern continents. Strange creatures have always lived in Gondwana. They penetrated there from Laurasia and evolved there completely independently of other regions.

- What is the specificity of our "Russian" dinosaur? How is he different from the rest?

He is not very different from others. But he is very evolutionarily advanced, that is, these are already complex sauropods. Outwardly, giant sauropod dinosaurs, when viewed from afar, are approximately all the same type: long neck and tail, four legs, large sizes, and then there are already some variations: for example, how the teeth were arranged, in primitive ones they are in the form of spoons, that is, with an extension to bite branches, for more advanced ones - in the form of pencils. Ours has something intermediate between spoons and pencils.

Was there no protection?

When you are 10-12 meters, no one is afraid of you. The main task of sauropods is to grow to these sizes as quickly as possible. There were sauropods and under 30 meters, while predators usually grew up to seven meters.

- Why didn't predators develop into super predators?

This is very disadvantageous. And 20-meter predators never existed. Vegetation, apparently, was enough to feed even such giants as sauropods. Predators always have a problem - they need to hunt. Hunting is a big waste of energy. The larger the predator, the more meat it needs.

Predators are very vulnerable, it can be seen even in modern lions and tigers. For example, if a tyrannosaurus breaks its leg when attacking a victim - that's it, it's death, because it can no longer eat.

be very large predator extremely difficult. Even a Tyrannosaurus rex would hardly have climbed a giant sauropod, because he understood that the price of a mistake is very high. Plus, some other life experience, because dinosaurs were clearly no more stupid than birds.

Which of the dinosaurs survived to this day?

Only birds. Crocodiles are the modern cousins ​​of the dinosaurs. Both of them belong to the group of archosaurs. "Archo" is "higher", archosaurs are higher lizards.

But by the behavior of modern birds and crocodiles, you can understand how dinosaurs behaved. There is even such a method - bracketing. If crocodiles have complex behavior - care for offspring, demonstration during the mating season, if birds have it, then dinosaurs also had it.

In Mongolia, they even found a dinosaur in the pose of a mother hen.

- When you eat grilled chicken, do you think you're eating a dinosaur?

I thought before. Previously, even with children who are interested in paleontology, we had a separate lesson on the anatomy of dinosaurs, where we ate grilled chicken. Yes, indeed, one to one, not much has changed.

- There was a period when the horse could be carried away predator birds. What is this time?

This is the beginning cenozoic era. Before this was the end of the Cretaceous period, most dinosaurs die out, with the exception of birds. The niche of large flightless running predators is empty. Mammals, it seems, have been in some kind of frenzy for several million years - where are these predatory guys? They continued to be quite small. But there were large predatory flightless birds and large crocodiles. In those birds, the wings were reduced, they themselves are about two meters tall. They looked a bit like an ostrich: powerful legs, small wings, only a beak half a meter long. And the horse was the size of a dog. With a blow of its beak, the bird could kill this horse instantly. But then the mammals came to their senses, and predators also appeared among them.

- And what did the horses carry away - is it established by scratches on the bones or is it an assumption?

This is an assumption. When a paleontologist reconstructs the fauna, he looks at who was a herbivore, who was a predator, reveals the most terrible predator, top predator, top predator. Apex predators usually eat everyone. Let's take a white shark - what she sees, she will eat it. In the taiga, the top predator of spring are bears. A hungry large male will devour another male, a smaller one, both a man and a wild boar.

- Can you then explain why the dinosaurs have become so smaller?

Part of the myth is that all dinosaurs were large. Dinosaurs occupied different niches. And there were a lot of small dinosaurs. When you are small, you can run and chase insects. This is your niche, you are an insect hunter. The bigger you are, the more vulnerable you are. Absolutely ingenious step - to master the flight. When dinosaurs learned to fly, they had a chance to survive - you can fly over if the conditions are unfavorable.

- What other evolutionary gadgets helped ancient animals occupy new niches?

Preservation of children's, larval features in adulthood. This is called paedomorphosis. The second option, when the larva begins to multiply, is neoteny. This is an absolutely ingenious thing, it is characteristic of tailed amphibians. There is also such a thing as facultative neoteny. For example, the larva of ambystoma (), very beautiful, with external gills, in a pond South America faces a life dilemma: to go on land or not. If there is a lot of food - a lot and good - why undergo a metamorphosis? And she remains a larva, begins to multiply. The second way - the reservoir dries up, there is little food, which means that you go through metamorphosis and become a terrestrial salamander.

The inhibition of some development program, the acquisition and consolidation of childhood traits - this is generally a very frequent evolutionary background. For example, you and I - we have a lot of paedomorphic features. Even if we go to the mirror, look at ourselves - typical childish features: big eyes, an unstretched muzzle.

Quite right. There can be various reasons why the program is slowing down. A common case is when a part of the body becomes paedomorphic, and some, on the contrary, becomes super-developed. For example, in swarming frogs, a very powerful skull suddenly begins to form, while the rest of the body remains semi-cartilaginous. Both Mickey Mouse and female anime characters are pedomorphic. The latter - big eyes, breasts of a very serious size, a mixture is obtained: hyperdeveloped breasts with a completely childish head.

There are many such mixes. It is even believed that humans, dinosaurs, vertebrates in general, originated by paedomorphosis. Our type is chordates. Our relatives are tunicates. The tunicates have a larva with a tail and a sessile stage. And now let's imagine: the sessile stage is lost, the larva begins to multiply, and thus, most likely, "protofishes" appeared. But then the jaws appeared at the “profish”, and they became fish, the fish came to land, reptiles originated from amphibians, which broke away from the water, and then it came to the dinosaur and man.

I heard a crazy theory that aliens are people from the future, mutated. They have huge eyes to get more visual information, a small mouth, as the conversation will stop playing. important role, just a couple of fingers, since in the world of computers this is not particularly necessary, etc. Do you think it is possible to change into this?

Is it possible. There was a wonderful paleontologist - Alexei Petrovich Bystrov, he participated in the formation of the St. Petersburg school of paleontologists, and in the 60s he wrote the book "The Past, Present, Future of Man." Alexey Petrovich - one of the first to dream up what the people of the future will look like. But his fantasies had a serious scientific basis. He was not only a paleontologist, but also a military doctor. And during the war, several thousand human skulls passed through his hands. He tried to find out what no longer works for a person, what is a rudiment.

According to Bystrov, in a few thousand years a person will be small in stature, with a small number of teeth - wisdom teeth will disappear first of all - with a large head, since a lot of information will have to be processed.

Perhaps the fingers will become smaller, and the eyes will increase. Why waste the energy of the body on the development of the senses, if you can perceive all the information visually and you feel good?

- Can't we learn to regenerate? After all, amphibians regenerated their legs, parts of the brain, and eyes.

This is from the realm of fantasy. Salamanders and some other amphibians could indeed regenerate. But as soon as they moved to land, they complicated the structure of the body, they lost the ability to regenerate. This is some evolutionary fee. Dinosaurs began to bite off pieces from each other, and nothing grew back from them.

Some scientists are trying to revive mammoths, trying to do it with the help of mice. Is it possible to revive dinosaurs using some remnants, for example, with the help of chickens?

If you had asked this five years ago, I would have said that it is absolutely impossible. Now I'm saying it's 98-99% impossible. Why? First, in order to reconstruct something, you need DNA. Frozen mammoths retain only fragments of DNA. Even this has not yet been technically resolved. When the mammoth is restored with the help of mice or elephants, let molecular biologists think, it will be a breakthrough. Although I don't understand why. Well, it must be cool to have a pet hairy mammoth in your backyard.

About dinosaurs.

Previously, it was believed that nothing organic and complex molecular remains of dinosaurs. Then an ingenious study was made: they dissolved the bone of a tyrannosaurus rex, and it turned out that something was preserved there. But this is not DNA, these are collagen proteins, these are structural molecules that are in the bones.

But this is already great progress. Since something molecular is preserved, maybe we will find something else under certain conditions. There is a minimum chance.

Now the last word technique in paleontology - the use of the synchrotron. With it, you can study the detailed structure of bones. At one of the conferences, they gave us special glasses and said: “Now we will fly through the cavities inside this bone.” And so we flew. This is a completely different level.

- Would you like a pet dinosaur?

No, I wouldn't want a pet dinosaur. I would be more interested to see how it really was. This is not a pile of stones for us, in fact, these are living creatures. We can speculate how they evolved, speculate that this dinosaur hunted in packs, but that's all speculation. So we assumed that our tengrisaurus was 10-12 meters. I would like to know if this is true? And see some details that we can't even imagine.

Do you want to know what kinds of dinosaurs learned to swim underwater?

Most of the huge swimming monsters we know about are called marine reptiles, not dinosaurs. These huge creatures lived in the seas and oceans at the same time that dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

The most famous marine predator is the Spinosaurus.

It was the largest sea carnivorous dinosaur that we know about. Scientists think that he could live both on land and in water. He could dive underwater and swim, as his limbs were webbed in the shape of the flippers of modern drivers. He probably hunted sharks and big fish.

Spinosaurus is the only dinosaur we know of that spent most of its life in the water. Another marine dinosaur Ceratosaurus (Ceratosaurus) probably could swim and hunt crocodiles and large fish underwater.

swimming reptiles

Spinosaurus was not the only one large dinosaur living in the water!

The sea abounded with large and ferocious reptiles of all shapes and sizes. Here are a few of them:

Nothosaurus Nobu Tamura

The first major oceanic reptiles were the Nechosaurs, which means "false reptile". They lived in Triassic, probably led a lifestyle similar to the life of modern seals. There are about a dozen different species, but Nothosaurus is the best known. This animal was about 4 meters (13 feet), with long, webbed toes and may have had a tail.

These reptiles were replaced by plesiosaurs, which appeared in the early Jurassic period. Most of them had long necks and small heads, ranging in size from 2.5 meters (8 feet) to 14 meters (46 feet) in length.

Pliosaurus

The largest of these was the Pliosaurus. This animal had teeth over 30 centimeters (12 inches) long, and its jaw pressure was four times more powerful than Tyrannosaurus Rex. It is 15 meters (49 ft) long.

Another underwater plesiosaur is the long-eyed Elamosaurus.

Elamosaurus

It had four fins and grew to a length of about 14 meters (46 feet). He was a very slow swimmer and probably hunted down large schools of fish while hunting.

Their necks were so long that they could not lift their heads above the water.

Why didn't all dinosaurs swim?

The word "dinosaur" has a very specific meaning.

Science uses the term "dinosaur" to describe a specific type of creature (such as the Spinosaurus), but this name does not include marine reptiles or the so-called "flying dinosaurs".

One reason for the different classifications is different kind their limbs. Dinosaurs had limbs that were located on the ventral part of their bodies, and marine reptiles had limbs that grew on the sides.

For a century, Russian dinosaurs have been playing hide-and-seek with scientists. Who won this exciting game?

“Russian dinosaurs, like the snakes of Ireland, are notable only for the fact that they do not exist,” said American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. 120 years ago, he came to the Russian Empire and was surprised to learn that not a single dinosaur bone was found in our country. That was incredible. Is it in the big country the world had no Mesozoic giants?

Russian scientists were not lucky with dinosaurs. These animals reigned on the planet in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods when half of the current territory of Russia was covered by shallow seas. Herds of lizards roamed inland. But their bones were not preserved - they ended up in the area of ​​sediment drift, from where sand and clay were dragged into the seas, to the burial places. Bones arrived there ground to dust.

Occasionally, on land, conditions were suitable for preserving the remains: the dinosaur drowned in a swamp or lake, or suffocated in layers of volcanic ash. But such burials were thoroughly destroyed over the past millions of years - glaciers passed through Russia, cutting off the bedrock, and then melted glacial waters began to erode and break the petrified bones.

Compared to dinosaur cemeteries in Asia and America, where thousands of bones were dug up, it looked frankly meager: in Russia, only one single bone turned out to be dinosaur.

But that's not even main reason failures that scientists had to endure. Everything that miraculously survived today is covered with forests, fields and is not available for study. Unlike the United States, Canada and China, Russia is not lucky: we do not have badlands - huge desert regions cut by gorges and canyons. All the preserved bones of Russian dinosaurs lie deep underground, it is very difficult to get them.

Occasionally, fossil remains come across in quarries, mines, along the banks of rivers and streams. Great luck if they are noticed in time and handed over to scientists. But luck was not enough for a long time. At the end of the 19th century, fragments of bones that could pass for dinosaurs were occasionally brought to Russian museums. Strange ribs were found in the gravel with which the Kursk road was paved. A piece of bone was delivered from Volyn-Podolia. An unusual vertebra was dug up in the Southern Urals. Accidentally mined was described as the remains of dinosaurs, but later it turned out that these were the bones of crocodiles, marine reptiles, and even amphibians.

However, even such finds were few - they would all fit in a small basket. Compared to dinosaur cemeteries in Asia and America, where thousands of bones were dug up, it looked frankly meager: in Russia, only one single bone turned out to be dinosaur. A small fragment of the lizard's foot was dug up in the Chita region near a coal mine. Paleontologist Anatoly Ryabinin described it in 1915 under the name Allosaurus sibiricus, although it was impossible to determine which dinosaur it belonged to from one bone. It is clear that the predatory - and that's all.

Soon more valuable remains were found. True, two curiosities happened to them at once. Once an Amur Cossack lieutenant colonel noticed that fishermen were knitting strange weights on their nets - long stones with a hole in the middle. The fishermen said that they collect them on the banks of the Amur, where a high cliff is eroded. According to them, it turned out that the entire beach was covered with stone knuckles.

This was reported to the Academy of Sciences. An expedition was organized, which, right before the revolution, delivered more than a ton of petrified remains to St. Petersburg. Of them collected big skeleton, describing it as the new kind duck-billed dinosaur. The lizard was given the name "Amur Manchurosaurus" (Mandschurosaurus amurensis). Is it true, gossips they called him a gypsosaurus, because he lacked many bones - they were molded from plaster. The skull, the most important part of the skeleton, was also plaster, with only a piece of the braincase being real. Later it became clear that the original bones belonged to different types and genera of lizards.

Now almost none of the paleontologists recognizes the Manchurosaurs. The irony also lies in the fact that the bones were collected on the right, Chinese bank of the Amur. So the "hypsosaurus" should not be considered Russian, but rather Chinese.

Curiosity came out with the second skeleton. Japanese paleontologists dug up the lizard in the coal mines of Sakhalin and named the Sakhalin nipponosaurus (Nipponosaurus sachalinensis). It was in the 1930s, when, after the defeat of Russia in Russo-Japanese War The island was owned by Japan. Fifteen years later, Sakhalin again became Russian, but the dinosaur remained "Japanese". A more leftovers dinosaurs were not found here.

The search for dinosaurs in Russia and the Soviet Union remained unsuccessful for a long time. It got ridiculous. In the late 1920s on the southern outskirts Soviet Union, a paleontological expedition headed to the Kazakh steppes. “All day long the horse walked over countless dinosaur bones,” recalled its participant, paleontologist and science fiction writer Ivan Yefremov. The bones covered vast areas of tens of kilometers. But not a single skeleton or skull was found - only fragments of bones.

“They didn’t know how to study them then, no one collected them,” says paleontologist Alexander Averyanov. Only half a century later, experts learned to identify extinct animals from fragmentary remains. But then the huge cemetery of dinosaurs in Kazakhstan had already been lost.

Then, for several years, Soviet paleontologists worked in the Kara-Tau mountains of Kazakhstan, where layers of gray shales occur. These mountains contain a great variety of fish, plant and insect prints from the Jurassic period. Unique skeletons of ancient salamanders, turtles, full prints of pterosaurs, and a bird feather were found here. The remains of almost all the inhabitants of the Jurassic lake and those who inhabited its shores were found. And again - no dinosaurs, although the Jurassic period was the time of their heyday ...

In the first half of the last century, numerous burials of Permian animal lizards, Devonian fish, and Triassic amphibians were discovered on the territory of Russia. The paleontological labs had everything from fossil insects to mammoth carcasses. Everything, except for the notorious diva-lizards - this is how Ivan Efremov called dinosaurs in the Russian manner.

Only in 1953 did paleontologists get really lucky. On the high bank of the Kemerovo River Kiya near the village of Shestakovo, geologists came across a skull and an incomplete skeleton of a small dog-sized psittacosaurus, which was called Siberian (Psittacosaurus sibiricus).

The skeleton was delivered to Moscow. A paleontological expedition was immediately dispatched to Kuzbass, but luck turned away from the scientists again. They did not find any remains - the water was high that summer, the layer with the bones was flooded.

Three years later, at the request of Efremov, an expedition of Kemerovo schoolchildren went to Shestakovo, headed by Gennady Prashkevich, a well-known writer, poet, and translator in the future. The guys then collected a whole box of bones, but, as it turned out in Moscow, they all belonged to mammoths and bison. Only half a century later, several more dinosaur bones were found in Shestakovo, including huge, like a bucket, sauropod vertebrae.

Everything was no less complicated with the locations of dinosaurs in the Far East. In the 1950s, an expedition from the Paleontological Institute tried to find dinosaurs in Blagoveshchensk. Excavations yielded nothing but a handful of scattered bones. It was decided that the bones were redeposited here: once whole skeletons were broken by water, after which the fragments were carried away to another place. A cross was put on the site. As it turned out later - in vain.

The lizards found in the Far East turned out to be very interesting - they are one of the last dinosaurs that lived on the planet.

In the late 1990s, a road was being laid in the hills near Kundur, and in one of the construction trenches, the son of geologist Yuri Bolotsky saw small vertebrae lying like a chain, one next to the other. It turned out to be the tail of a hadrosaur. Gradually digging up the remains, geologists uncovered a complete skeleton. The lizard was named Arharin Olorotitan (Olorotitan arharensis). The first discovery was followed by others.

Now excavations are carried out annually in the Far East, mainly in Blagoveshchensk. The local lizards turned out to be very interesting - they are one of the last dinosaurs that lived on the planet. They lived literally at the end of the great extinction. The study of Russian dinosaurs in general has advanced greatly in the last twenty years. Found a dozen large locations, managed to find valuable remains in the earlier famous places finds. The main burial places of Russian dinosaurs are located beyond the Urals - in Kundur, Blagoveshchensk, Shestakov.

A unique place was discovered on the banks of the Kakanaut River in the Koryak Highlands - this is the northernmost point of discovery of dinosaurs on the planet. Bones of seven families and egg shells of at least two dinosaur species have been found here. Remains of Cretaceous lizards have also been found in Buryatia (localities of Murtoy and Krasny Yar) and the Krasnoyarsk Territory (Bolshoy Kemchug). Dinosaurs of the Jurassic period have been found in Yakutia (Teete) and in the Tyva Republic (Kalbak-Kyry).

A small burial of Jurassic reptiles was also discovered near the city of Sharypovo in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Local historian Sergei Krasnolutsky came up with the idea: since dinosaurs were found in the neighboring Kemerovo region, they can also be found here, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In search of bones, he went to a coal quarry.

For a long time nothing came across, but finally the local historian saw broken turtle shells. There were so many of them that this layer was later called turtle soup. And nearby were bone plaques and teeth of crocodiles, long curved claws of dinosaurs that lived in the middle of the Jurassic period.

This time is practically a "blank spot" in the evolution of terrestrial life. Very few traces of him have survived. It is not surprising that the excavations in Sharypovo, which have been going on for several years, have led to the discovery of new animals. Among them are the as yet undescribed stegosaurus and the carnivorous dinosaur kilesk (Kileskus aristotocus), a distant ancestor of the famous tyrannosaurs.

In the western part of Russia there are no burials with intact skeletons and skulls of dinosaurs. Here, primarily in the Volga region and the Belgorod region, mostly scattered remains come across - individual vertebrae, teeth or fragments of bones.

An interesting find was made a hundred kilometers from Moscow, near railway station Sands, in a quarry where white limestones are mined. Jurassic sinkholes are found in these quarries. In the early 1990s, bulldozers unearthed a whole chain of ancient caves. 175 million years ago, they flowed underground river originating in the lake. The river carried the remains of animals, tree branches, and plant spores underground. For several years, paleontologists have managed to collect numerous turtle shells, bones of amphibians, crocodiles and ancient mammals, fish skeletons, freshwater shark spikes and the remains of predatory coelurosaurs (Coelurosauria). These dinosaurs probably reached about three meters in length, although the bones found were small: teeth the size of a fingernail and a claw smaller than a matchstick.

Gradually, the picture of the life of Russian marvelous lizards becomes more and more complete. Surely new graves will be discovered. Yes, and those that have long been known, constantly bring surprises in the form of bones of previously unknown dinosaurs. Othniel Charles Marsh, who assured that there were no Russian dinosaurs, concluded his statement with the words that sooner or later the remains of these animals would be found in Russia. The American paleontologist was right, although the wait was long.