Fossil of giant 70m year-old fish found in Argentina
A huge 70 million year good old fossil of a seafood that lived amidst dinosaurs has been uncovered in Argentine Patagonia, a team of experts said on Monday.
Argentine paleontologists “found the remains of a predator seafood that was more than six meters extended,” the researchers said in a statement.
The discovery was published in the scientific journal Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.
The fish “swam in the Patagonian seas towards the end of the Cretaceous Period, when the temperature there is a lot more temperate than now,” the statement said.
“The fossils of the carnivorous animal with sharp teeth and scary appearance were found near to the Colhue Huapial lake” around 1,400 kilometers south of the administrative centre Buenos Aires.
This fossil belonged to the Xiphactinus genus, “between the most significant predatory fish that existed in the annals of Earth.”
“Its physique was notably slim and ended in an enormous head with big jaws and pearly whites as sharp as needles, several centimeters long.”
Types of this species have already been found in other areas of the world, “a few of which have even preserved stomach contents,” said Julieta de Pasqua, among the study authors.
Previously, the Xiphactinus had just been within the northern hemisphere, although one of these was recently within Venezuela.
Patagonia is one of the main reservoirs of fossils of dinosaurs and prehistoric species.
