yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Ichthyosaurs 101 | National Geographic


less than 1m read
·Nov 11, 2024

  • [Narrator] While dinosaurs roamed the Earth and pterosaurs ruled the sky, sea monsters called ichthyosaurs dominated the world's oceans. Ichthyosaurs were ancient reptilian predators. They first appeared about 251 million years ago during the Triassic Period, 20 million years before dinosaurs came about. True to their name, which means fish lizards in Greek, the earliest ichthyosaurs looked much like lizards with fins.

Over the course of their 100 million year existence, their bodies transformed and became more akin to fish in shape. They had long narrow skulls and jaws that were lined with sharp teeth. These teeth were used to catch prey like fish and squid. Their eyes were the largest ever recorded of any animal, which helped them see through the dark waters of the deep ocean. In fact, one species had eyes that were over 10 inches wide.

Their bodies ranged in size. Some barely reached the length of two feet, while the longest specimen was about 85 feet long. They had paddle-like fins and a vertical tail which helped ichthyosaurs, despite their great size, zip through water at speeds of over 22 miles per hour. All together, these qualities put ichthyosaurs at the top of the marine food chain.

By the late Cretaceous Period, about 25 million years before an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs became extinct. Some scientists believe it may have been due to severe climate change. But the exact reason why these early sea monsters died out is still a mystery.

More Articles

View All
Big Changes at Y Combinator? An Inside Look with S22 Founders
Foreign expecting a full online kind of experience, and instead we got this. You mean the first annual Sonoma badge kickoff? I love just meeting everyone at the start of the batch, surrounded by really smart people from all over the world. Before I was in…
Interest Rate Cuts Have Begun.
The time has come for policy to adjust. The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks. Well, you heard it folks, that is Jerome Powell, the Chair of the …
Guardians of the Okavango | National Geographic
I’m a guardian of the guardians. I feel a duty to protect these guardians from what is the outside world, encroaching. I work within the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project as the community liaison with the people living in these Angolan highl…
Adorable Lemurs Roam Free on This Ancient Island | Short Film Showcase
Nita Terrace Helen Mirren Gandhi, I reckon if Allah to a new litter one potato atlatl. [Music] Kylie, the hero and the Monocacy lying in a field known lon Kenan rotten Atlanta kinds of top Caselli. They would do to flank the chopper; that’ll do it in th…
How a Shark Attack Survivor Invented Cage Diving
A lot of people would say you have got reason more than most to hate sharks, and yet you don’t. Can you explain it? It was in a spear fishing championship that I was the reigning champion. It was a six-hour competition. After four hours, many fish had …
Khan Academy’s AI Tool for the Classroom: Teacher + Student Edition
Welcome, welcome! We are going to be starting promptly at 3 o’clock, but we’re going to start letting our participants come in, so thank you for joining us today. Hello, hello, hello! Thank you all for joining us. We still have some participants coming in…