Marine dinosaur with a long neck. Aquatic dinosaurs, underwater dinosaurs. 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

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 both in the Far East and in the Moscow region. Pavel Skuchas, PhD in Biology, specialist in Mesozoic vertebrates, associate professor at St. Petersburg State University, is doing this professionally. 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. Agata 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 give in the face, and the savvy one will be glad that a good pair, sagittal setting of the 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 the Jurassic period, 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. Researchers are guided by published articles. Sometimes more than one hundred or two hundred signs are used to clarify family ties.

- 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 finds, 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 - the Chebulinsky district in the Kemerovo region. There are a lot of river sediments, and there is the Shestakovo locality, where whole skeletons have been preserved. Other places are the suburbs of the city of Blagoveshchensk in the Far East, the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the 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.

Being a very large predator is 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 by birds of prey. What is this time?

This is the beginning of the 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 large predatory flightless birds and large crocodiles appeared. 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 the reservoir of 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 have big eyes, breasts of a very serious size, resulting in a mixture: 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, since the conversation will no longer play an important role, just a couple of fingers, since in the world of computers this is not really 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 actually 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 latest technology in paleontology is 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.

Let's go back in time and talk about some of the most dangerous animals that have roamed our planet. It is a real happiness for us that these guys ceased to exist, otherwise human existence would be impossible. This particular list discusses the ten most dangerous dinosaurs. The good news is that they will never come to life again, although it would be dangerous to see them now, but really interesting! This experience for some would be the first and last. We hope this list will impress you.

A photo. Suggested coloration of Sinosauropteryx

Its name in Chinese means "wing of the Chinese dragon". It was the first non-Avialae dinosaur to have wings. They had fluffy feathers, long tails and short forelimbs and were close relatives of the Compsognathians. Both belong to the Compsognathus family. However, the feathers of Sinosauropteryx are not suitable for flight. These were short downy feathers visible on the head, back and tail of this life-giving animal.

They lived in northeastern China during the Cretaceous and were the first dinosaurs to be discovered in the Yixian Formation. Many aspects and their biology are illustrated through well-preserved fossils.

A photo. Liopleurodon in the deep sea

The name means "smooth teeth" and they were marine carnivorous reptiles. They belong to the suborder Pilosauroidea. They lived in the middle of the Jurassic period and could grow up to a whopping 25 meters in length. Their remains have mostly been found in England and France, and one species is known to have existed somewhere in Russia. They had four strong limbs which indicate that they were indeed strong swimmers. Research shows that this body structure provides excellent acceleration, if not top speed.

8 Ankylosaurus

A photo. Ankylosaurus

Ankylosaurus means "bent lizard". It belonged to the ankylosaurid family (lat. Ankylosauridae) and was classified as a reptile. They could grow up to about nine meters in length and weigh over 6,000 kilograms. Fossils report that they lived during the Cretaceous period in western North America. A complete skeleton of these species has not yet been discovered, so the illustrations may not be accurate, but at least give an idea of ​​them. This dinosaur was heavily armored, which helped him both in defense and attack.

In ankylosaurs and some other ankylosaur species, the bones at the end of the tail have evolved into a rigid baseball bat-like structure. Some of the bony plates on the skin became huge and completely wrapped around the tip of the tail. Ankylosaurs also had wide hips, which meant that the muscles that move the tail from side to side were large and powerful.

The armored dinosaur ankylosaurus was a close relative of the stegosaurus and these dinosaurs fought off their enemies in the same way. Whereas Stegosaurus had a row of spines at the end of its tail, Ankylosaurus was equipped with a massive hundred-pound tail club. A well-directed strike from this projectile could easily break a hungry Tyrannosaurus rex's hind leg or even knock out a few teeth, although it appears to have also been used in intraspecific combat during mating season.

A photo. Sarcosuchus on the hunt

Sarcosuchus means "crocodile flesh". It appears that they were very distant relatives of crocodiles that lived about 112 million years ago. These are perhaps the largest crocodiles that have ever lived on Earth, judging by the fossils found in Africa. They are classified as a reptile and belong to the Pholidosauridae family. It is generally accepted that they were as long as a city bus, over 12 meters, and they weighed over 8 tons. One skull was the size of a grown man, one bite and you were gone.

Unlike its closest relatives, who lived in the marine environment, Sarcosuchus fell in love with the rivers. He spent most of his time under water, leaving only his eyes on the surface, he waited for the animals that came to drink.

6. Allosaurus

A photo. Allosaurus

These guys lived at the end of the Jurassic period about 155 million years ago. The name means "strange lizard". It is classified as a reptile and belongs to the family of allosaurids (lat. Allosauridae). It reportedly had a large skull with several very sharp teeth and was about 9 meters long and 4 meters high overall. Some studies show that they could reach 12 meters. They had a heavy tail providing good balance. It is estimated that they weighed about 2.3 tons. Imagine if these creatures were alive or came to life.

It is difficult to assess the mortal danger of dinosaurs only from the fossils that have survived to us. But if you're willing to make a sort of time jump, then the Allosaurus was a far more deadly predator than the Tyrannosaurus. Be that as it may, the Allosaurus was not very smart. For example, a group of adult dinosaurs was found that died in a quarry in Utah, mired in deep slush as they chased prey.

A photo. three troodon

It was a small bird-like dinosaur and reportedly lived during the late Cretaceous period. Their fossils were first discovered in 1855 in North America. Other species have been found in Texas, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The name means "wounding tooth". It is classified as a reptile and belongs to the Troodontidae family (lat. Troodontidae). They were said to have averaged about 2.5 meters in length and could weigh over 50 kilograms. As we said, they were small. But less is more deadly, at least in most cases.

He didn't have particularly sharp and scary teeth. But it was found that this theropod had a relatively large brain, at least compared to other carnivorous dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period, and presumably was able to hunt in packs at night.

4. Kronosaurus

A photo. Kronosaurus

The name means "lizard of Kronos". They were named after the Greek titan named Cronus. These dinosaurs had a short neck. They are classified as sauropsids and belong to the pliosaurid family (lat. Pliosauridae). They reached 13 meters in length, but were usually around 9 or 10 meters. They were equipped with large teeth exceeding a length of seven centimeters. The largest of his teeth was 30 centimeters long. Its fossils have been discovered in Australia.

Kronosaurus had teeth up to 30cm long and used them to tear apart prey like huge fish, squid, ammonites and even other marine reptiles including ichthyosaurs and turtles. Possible bite marks from this animal have been found on one known Elasmosaurus skull.

3. Amphicelium

A photo. Amphicelia in the Polish JuraPark Dinosaur Park

The name literally means "duality". These dinosaurs were the longest known vertebrates, averaging 40 to 60 meters in length. They weighed 122 tons, and reached a height of a 7-storey building. They were classified as reptiles and belonged to the Diplodocidae family. Their remains were lost at some point, so these guys couldn't be explored in detail, although the movie Jurassic Park gives a pretty good idea of ​​what they looked like.

2 Velociraptor

A photo. Velociraptor

We're sure you remember these guys from the famous movie called Jurassic Park and this movie gives you an idea of ​​what a problem they might have been for other dinosaurs. The name means "fast hunter" and is said to have lived 75-71 million years ago. They lived in the late Cretaceous period. Their fossils have been found in China and Mongolia. They are classified as reptiles and belong to the family of dromaeosaurids (lat. Dromaeosauridae). They could weigh up to 15 kilograms and grow up to 2 meters in length. Although they may appear potentially harmless given their size and weight, they usually attack in herds and therein lies the problem. In addition, they moved very quickly.

1. Tyrannosaurus

A photo. Apocalyptic scene with tyrannosaurs

We're sure you'd expect the Tysarosaurus to be at the top of the list. The name means "tyrant lizard". Fossils report that these guys lived in western North America about 67 million years ago. They are classified as reptiles and belong to the tyrannosaurid family (lat. Tyrannosauridae). They could grow over 12 meters in length and usually weighed over 6 tons. They were armed with claws and long powerful tails. We are just sure that you can imagine these guys very well if you saw them in the Jurassic Park movie.

Tyrannosaurus rex was first reported to have scaly skin, followed by reports that the lizard king may have been covered in "fluffy feathers," but a new study on tyrannosaurus rex skin reports that these dinosaurs were not covered in feathers.

We will never know if Tyrannosaurus was especially fierce or scarier than other, lesser-known tyrannosaurs like Albertosaurus or Alioramus, whether it hunted live prey or feasted on dead carcasses most of its time. In any case, there is no doubt that Tyrannosaurus Rex was the ultimate killing machine when circumstances called for, given its weight of 5 to 8 tons, sharp eyesight, and huge head studded with numerous sharp teeth.

Well, if you have not satisfied your interest in dinosaurs, then we advise you to watch the documentary film "Planet Dinosaur" (Planet Dinosaur), consisting of several series.

Sergey Leshchinsky, Head of the Laboratory of Mesozoic and Cenozoic Continental Ecosystems, Tomsk State University

For me now the most interesting topic is the problem of the extinction of the mammoth fauna. At the end of the 19th century, two main hypotheses were formed - climatic and anthropogenic. These two versions survived until the end of the 20th century almost unchanged. I have been digging up the remains of mammoths for twenty-five years. In the process of such long-term research, I came up with my own concept - geochemical, based on tectonic changes. Vertical movements of the earth's crust and climate humidification have affected the geochemistry of landscapes that were generally alkaline, but became mostly acidic 10,000 years ago. According to my hypothesis, mammoths were unable to adapt to the changed (more acidic) characteristics of soils, drinking water, and associated food resources. Paleontologically, this is proved by a sharp increase in the proportion of pathological changes in bones and teeth.

I have always been interested in science at the intersection of disciplines, broad topics, big problems. When I finished school, I thought where to go next - in paleontology, geology or archeology, and now I do all this at once. I study ancient ecosystems, and that includes the environment and organisms that existed at that time, the climate and the geological setting. Paleontology is, in fact, a synthesis of biology, geology, geography. Now science has reached a level where both living and inanimate nature - the whole system - is studied in a comprehensive manner.

The longer you work, the more you realize how much is unclear around.

Now my hypothesis has more and more supporters, and it has spurred the development of old ideas. For example, the Americans and the Dutch revive the hypothesis of a comet fall, explaining that massive fires occurred and a large amount of carbon dioxide was formed in the atmosphere, which resulted in the oxidation of landscapes. I explain this oxidation by terrestrial causes - tectonics and climate humidification.

For dinosaurs, we have much less data and finds. Mammoths lived by geological standards relatively recently - less than ten thousand years ago, and dinosaurs - more than sixty million years ago. There is no longer any organic matter left of them, only fossils. But it is possible that geochemical factors also contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Our group from TSU has discovered most of the locations of dinosaur fauna in Russia. Until 1995, only four locations were known in our country, and now there are already twenty. A new dinosaur region in the Kemchug basin between Achinsk and Krasnoyarsk - our findings.

But much more actively we dig mammoth fauna. There is a very large location in the Kargatsky district of the Novosibirsk region - Wolf's mane. It remained unexplored for a long time. We returned to it twenty years after the discovery with new data and knowledge - now this is the coolest location of the mammoth fauna in Asia. There is the highest concentration of fossil remains - in some places more than 130 finds per square meter. There's less rock than bones!

Every season there are several field stories that then turn into stories. Here's a story about folk wisdom. Digging, a man drives up on a tractor. “What,” he says, “are you digging?” Looking for Dinosaurs. He thought and gave out: "You have an interesting job, you are looking for something that you have not lost."

Paleontologists are often considered eccentrics. The profession is unusual, in Russia people generally do not understand what paleontologists do. When you come somewhere with excavations, everyone is sure that archaeologists, since we are digging. We have long been accustomed to, even agree to archaeologists.

However, in our country you cannot distinguish a paleontologist or a geologist from a mushroom picker or a fisherman - they all go in one. But abroad, paleontologists look different, and the format of field work is different. Once in America, I saw a really classic cinematic character of a paleontologist-geologist - big shoes, shorts, a hammer, a mustache, a hat, glasses, and small in stature.

Children are always very interested in our work. This is encouraging, because paleontology is an extremely important science, it is of great practical importance, for example, in the study of oil and gas fields, since paleontological remains allow us to determine the age of rocks. Almost every year, a lot of new species of plants and animals are discovered that no one knew about before. And of course, we have a romantic profession. You discover the past of the land you walk on, you know the origins, you see what no one has seen before you.

How toothy birds grew

Pavel Skuchas, Associate Professor, Department of Vertebrate Zoology, St. Petersburg State University

There are two questions that I would like to find an answer to. The first question is about the origin of this or that group of beings. For example, when we learned that modern birds are descendants of carnivorous dinosaurs, it was a breakthrough. But there are still many blank spots. With regard to modern frogs and salamanders, there is still debate about which group of ancient amphibians they descended from. I want to understand this. The second question is the evolution of dinosaurs. I would like to restore the whole picture of the Mesozoic - how the dinosaurs changed, how they disappeared.

I decided to become a paleontologist at the age of five. Children are always interested in the unusual, and here are the dinosaurs! It seems to me that people who retain this childish interest go into paleontology, they want to discover something new. It has not weakened for me, now my area is dinosaurs and ancient amphibians.

I also research how ancient vertebrates grew. I study this by a specific method, similar to the study of tree growth rings - a thin cut of the bone of the fossil is made and the cut line is studied by analogy with growth rings. You can trace the lines of stopping growth, in winter growth slows down, then resumes. Amphibians, reptiles, and some mammals have such rings. It is one thing to find and describe a skeleton, quite another to understand how an animal has grown and developed throughout its life.

The end product of a paleontologist's work is a scientific article. After all, if a paleontologist has found a dinosaur, then this is not yet paleontology, but collecting. Research can be carried out on the basis of the results of your own expeditions, or you can go to museums, look at collections, and find something new. I go on expeditions and to museums. It is difficult to look for something new on the territory of Russia, everything is overgrown with taiga, there are no deserts. So, unfortunately, there are also unsuccessful expeditions.

“Deaf taiga, the rangers-guides left us, twisted their fingers at the temple and said: “Two people went to the taiga, one will return.” We worked for three days, hardly slept. On the third evening, a boat comes along the river with men shooting at someone on our bank. And after five minutes, some aggressive beast begins to walk around the camp.

A field paleontologist lives two lives - on expeditions and in the laboratory. An expedition is a small life, sometimes you work in a remote taiga, a desert, but there are expeditions when you have to work in an active quarry, you knead the dirt around BelAZ, there is no romance in this. When you find something, this is the first delight. When you begin to study the discovery, you experience the delight of discovery. And the final touch is the finished article. That is, our work gives very different feelings: the romance of the expedition, the joy of laboratory discoveries, the satisfaction after the publication of an article.

Looking at the same paleontologist in the field and at a conference, you may not recognize him. The field version is a big beard, boots, an ax, a shovel; in the non-field season, these are intelligent people in jackets. And the eccentricity, probably, remains inside, this is just the same childish curiosity that they managed to save.

Often in the fields there are situations that border on idiocy. In 2015, I, along with one student, went on reconnaissance to the Lower Tunguska, not understanding the terrain. It turned out that there are a lot of unkind bears. And now - the deaf taiga, the rangers-guides left us, twisted their fingers at the temple and said: "Two people went to the taiga, one will return." We worked for three days, burned fires, hardly slept. Suddenly, on the third day in the evening, a boat with peasants passes by us on the river, they fire four shots at someone on our bank and drive on. Five minutes later, some aggressive beast begins to walk around our small camp. We had a rubber boat, we quickly plunged into it and sailed 38 kilometers to the nearest winter hut. An indescribable feeling when the two of you are scratching along the river in a small rubber boat, running away from a bear, and snowy owls are flying around, like in Harry Potter! Phones are not picked up there, so upon arrival at the winter quarters, I had to “write a Tunguska SMS” - go to the bank of the river, where a boat with fishermen or hunters goes about once a day, and send them a note asking them to contact our rangers so that they come and pick up US. A day later, the huntsmen arrived, and we were able to finish the job under guard with carbines. The most dangerous thing in expeditions is novice scientists and people who are sure that they already know and can do everything.

What microbes know about dinosaurs

Anastasia Gulina, Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Mesozoic and Cenozoic Continental Ecosystems, Tomsk State University

In the expedition, everyone works for the same goal, but everyone has their own area of ​​​​responsibility. We clean up the sections to the level where the finds lie, study the geology of this place and select rock samples. Under laboratory conditions, we isolate the organic component from the organo-mineral fraction and obtain a concentrate, which we study under a microscope - for example, I specialize in spores and pollen. This is called micropaleontology. The microcosm is no less interesting than the bones of mammoths and dinosaurs: it stores a lot of information about the living conditions of this megafauna.

As geologists like to say, it so happened historically that I came to paleontology. I studied at the Faculty of Geology and went to my first geological practice with Sergey Leshchinsky, where we were lucky to dig up mammoths and wash the bones and teeth of small mammals, crocodiles, dinosaurs. After practice, he invited me to join his paleontological detachment - since then I have been here. And recently, my mother was sorting through old books and remembered that in childhood my favorite book was “Kids about Minerals”. And I realized that my hobbies come from childhood.

I love the field work very much and I hate to hang around in the city in the summer. I like that we do not have a routine, not monotonous work - every day we learn something new, we are not tied to a strict schedule ... The most important thing is the task and the result. On an expedition, you feel like you belong to yourself.

Each expedition we have is associated with funny stories. Once we rafted down the Demyanka River for several weeks, it was hot, and there was not a single settlement for a hundred kilometers ... The guys wanted beer - naturally, we don’t take it on an expedition, and there is nowhere to buy it. We laid out “I want beer” with pieces of tree bark on the sand and waved to the passing barges. Usually we were just buzzed, but from one barge they offered vodka.

And once we camped on a channel of the Chulym River. My friend and I were on duty. We did all the household chores and decided to take a walk in a kayak. Half an hour later we returned to the camp, everything is upside down there! And from our headquarters tent sticks out ... a cow's tail. We drove the cows away and started cleaning. At some point, we looked at the cauldrons and realized that the cows had safely eaten the rest of the salad. And in gratitude, they licked the cauldron to a shine.

It's funny when you go on a reconnaissance route through a dense forest and stumble, for example, on a bed standing there. Once we met a sofa in the forest, covered from the rain with polyethylene. Who needed a sofa in the woods, and why didn't this man come back for it?

“The guys wanted beer, - of course, we don’t take it on an expedition. We laid out “I want beer” with pieces of tree bark on the sand and waved to the passing barges. Usually they just buzzed us, but from one barge they offered vodka. ”

Our areas of interest are not limited to paleontology. What we just do not talk about in the expedition! We work at the excavation, and in the camp we play board games, sing songs with the guitar, argue about anything. Paleontology is not only a male profession: micropaleontology is mainly done by women, and many women work in geology.

When we arrive at a new place, the people living there have a lot of interest in our work. But yes, we are always called archaeologists. And they often ask the question: “Are you looking for gold?”

Why don't crocodiles fly?

Alexander Averyanov, Professor of the Department of Sedimentary Geology, St. Petersburg State University, Head of the Theriology Laboratory, Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Of the bones that I have personally found, the most important find is part of the skull of a duck-billed dinosaur. But I'm not much of a field worker. I prefer to sit in my office and describe the bones. Fortunately, my younger colleagues are now doing much more efficient field work than under my personal supervision. I myself often got into some kind of story. For example, I came to Buryatia at Goose Lake with a new tent. In the evening a hurricane began, and I managed to put it up with great difficulty. By the morning, shreds of matter remained from it, scattered within a radius of several kilometers across the steppe, and broken iron bars. The rest of the expedition I lived in a food tent. But it was very funny.

I have always been interested in the past. Without the past, it is impossible to understand the present and predict the future. Actually, the past is the most reliable thing we have. The present is a shaky, unstable film between the past and the future. The future is uncertain and therefore scary. How to understand why giraffes live in Africa, but crocodiles do not fly? These and many other questions can only be answered by the history of life on our planet. It is unique and will not be repeated anywhere else, even if life arises again or has already arisen somewhere. Science fiction writers populate other planets with anthropomorphic aliens, trees, and near-terrestrial animals. How incredible this is can be understood by studying the history of life on Earth.

During my school years, I was most interested in genetics and paleontology. I went to the circle of genetics and to the small geological faculty. Then I realized: in order to study paleontology, one cannot go to the Faculty of Geology, since paleontology is a biological science. As a result, he entered the biological faculty of Leningrad University. After the third year, on the advice of my supervisor, I went to the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Here I work to this day, and part-time - at the universities of St. Petersburg, Tomsk and Guangzhou.

Paleontologists are little different from other people. Of course, sometimes ordinary people perceive scientists as eccentrics, because they do not understand what they are doing. From the point of view of such an inhabitant, success in life is determined by the accumulated material wealth. And for scientists, the meaning of life lies in knowledge, and they look at these inhabitants as unfortunate people who live their lives mediocrely.

What gives me the greatest joy is learning new things. First, you learn for yourself what is already known to science - this is a learning process. Then you understand what no one knew before you - and you contribute to scientific progress. There is no greater joy than to understand that the bone in your hands belongs to an animal unknown to anyone and you were the first to know about its existence.

There is nothing wrong with living in the past. For example, I do not want to live in a future where there will be no forests and large animals and the whole planet will be in glass and concrete.

News from the Jurassic period

What We Learned About Dinosaurs in the 21st Century

Not all dinosaurs are extinct

Modern classification allows you to resurrect dinosaurs. Biologists divide the ancient lizards into two groups - ornithischian and lizard. Contrary to the name, it was the lizards (a typical representative of them T-Rex) that became the ancestors of modern birds. It is impossible to clearly distinguish between birds and dinosaurs on the evolutionary tree, birds may well be considered a variety of dinosaurs. Not all monsters died out 65 million years ago, and when you throw crumbs to pigeons in the park, remember that you are feeding real dinosaurs!

Feathered revolution

In 1996, the Chinese paleontologist Ji Qiang discovered the remains of a small and very unusual dinosaur: shales preserved the imprints of feathers that surrounded the skeleton in the form of a halo. Thus began the "feathered revolution" - since then, paleontologists have found dozens of other feathered dinosaurs: predators and herbivores, small and large, flying and terrestrial. In 2012, paleontologists even managed to find a feathered tyrannosaurus rex. The high preservation of his remains made it possible to restore the structure of the feathers: they looked more like fluff needed for heating, and not like flight feathers of birds. Don't believe the old drawings - dinosaurs were furry!

Not so cold blooded

Since the end of the 20th century, paleontologists began to suspect dinosaurs of warm-bloodedness. This was indicated by the large blood vessels in the bones and their need for a high metabolism, as in modern mammals and birds. Because fossil bones have tree-like growth rings, in 2014 scientists were able to determine the type of metabolism from the structure and growth rate of dinosaur bones. It turned out that the ancient lizards occupied an intermediate position of "mesotherms", that is, the blood in their veins flowed neither cold nor warm. Like warm-blooded animals, they could generate their own heat, but they could not maintain a constant body temperature. 8 mesothermic species still exist today: some species of sharks, turtles, tuna and the Australian echidna.

pregnant dinosaur

In February of this year, the first evidence was found in China that some dinosaurs may have been viviparous rather than oviparous. In the fossils of a female dinocephalosaurus, traces of cervical vertebrae and smaller forelimbs were found in the belly area. The fact that this is an embryo, and not the last supper of a predator, was proved by belonging to the same species, the absence of a fossilized shell, the size and position of the body of a smaller individual. The aquatic predatory reptile adapted to live birth due to anatomical features: a long neck and lobed limbs did not allow beautiful ladies to build nests and lay eggs on land.

Not only the meteorite is to blame

Often the disappearance of dinosaurs is explained by "catastrophic" hypotheses, the most popular of which is the fall of the Chicxulub meteorite, which left behind a crater 180 km in diameter at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. But in 2016, it was shown that the extinction began long before the asteroid hit, and the gradual "decline of the lizards" lasted at least 40 million years. Probably, the dinosaurs were already suffering from some kind of processes, and the meteorite just finished off the poor fellows. In addition, the catastrophe was not as terrible as it is described: if the atmosphere of the planet were really filled with vapors of sulfuric acid that reflected light, darkness would come and photosynthesis would stop, the temperature would drop and acid rain would pour - it would not be good for everyone. So this scenario does not explain the survival of crocodiles, mammals and birds. The investigation into the mysterious death of dinosaurs continues ...

big-eyed lizard

In Jurassic Park, the characters tried to escape the T-Rex by relying on its hideous vision: “Don't move! He won't see us if we don't move." In fact, the narrow skull and tennis-ball-sized eye setting gave the T-Rex an excellent sense of depth, greater than a hawk's visual range and 13 times the clarity of human vision. In addition, a year ago, geneticists from the University of Cambridge found evidence that dinosaurs had color vision. The researchers believe that they could distinguish red shades thanks to a gene for the synthesis of red pigment in the retina, the same is in birds and turtles.

Well, where are your hands

In the Chrome browser, when it is impossible to connect to the Internet, a funny icon appears: a tyrannosaurus rex, which with its short legs cannot “reach” the globe, the symbol of the global network. However, the useless "handles" of the Tyrannosaurus rex are another myth. According to recent studies, one left (or right) T-Rex could lift up to 200 kilograms. In addition, paleontologists have found cracks in the bones of the forelimbs, which indicates their active use. Most likely, tyrannosaurs used their forepaws in fighting and hunting other dinosaurs.

The biggest dinosaur

On August 9, an article was published in which Argentine paleontologists described the largest land animal that ever lived on the planet. Representatives of the new species Patagotitan mayorum from the genus of titanosaurs reached 37 meters in length, 15 meters in height and weighed about 69 tons. They lived 100 million years ago.

Russian dinosaurs

The most famous and interesting finds

PERM REGION

Here they found small archosaurs, the ancestors of dinosaurs, as well as animal-like lizards that gave rise to mammals, and cheeky lizards, vaguely similar to huge turtles without a shell.

LOWER VOLGA REGION

Complete skeletons of Elasmosaurus, a giant aquatic dinosaur, have not yet been found in our country, however, accumulations of individual bones of this reptile have been discovered in the Lower Volga region.

PENZA REGION

Not far from the city of Penza, in the 1920s, the skull of one of the largest specimens of Hoffman's Mosasaurus was found. The dinosaur that lived in the sea reached 17 meters in length, and 10% of the body length was a powerful jaw.

ORENBURG REGION

In the Orenburg region, unusually large fragments of the bones of a plesiosaur, the largest predator in the history of the Earth, were found. The length of his body approached 20 m.

CHUVASHIA

Abyssosaurus nataliae lived here - a seven-meter giant with a very long neck, a kind of "water giraffe". Abyssosaurus in translation - "lizard from the abyss"; judging by the structure of the bones, he lived deep under water.

KUNDUR LOCATION

(Arkharinsk district of the Amur region)

In the late 1990s, the tail of a hadrosaur was found in construction trenches, followed by the entire skeleton. The lizard, named Olorotitan arharensis, turned out to be one of the last dinosaurs to live on Earth.

LOCATION COAKANOUT

(Anadyrsky district of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug)

The bank of the Kakanaut River in the Koryak Highlands is the northernmost point where traces of dinosaurs have been found. Eggshells of hadrosaurs and theropods have been found here.

NIKOLSKOYE LOCATION

(Sharypovsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory)

Near the city of Sharypova in 2000, a new class of dinosaurs of the titanosaurid family was discovered. Among the new animals discovered here is the carnivorous dinosaur Kileskus aristotocus, the ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

ULYANOVSK REGION

On the banks of the Volga, scientists discovered the remains of a new species of pliosaurus, which was named Makhaira rossica. Pliosaurs were large sea lizards up to 9 meters in length. The “Volga pliosaurus” was smaller (up to 5 meters), but judging by the structure of the teeth, it could hunt large prey not only in water, like others, but also on land.

BLAGOVESCHENSKY DISTRICT

One of the most famous "Russian dinosaurs", Ryabinin's Amurosaurus, was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century. The lizard belonged to the family of duck-billed dinosaurs and had a hollow crest on its head, presumably used for visual and vocal communication with fellow dinosaurs.

Any person imagines a dinosaur in the form of a ferocious lizard of terrifying size, baring its huge mouth and destroying everything in its path. Indeed, most of the ancient reptiles had a gigantic size that boggles the imagination. This is evidenced by numerous finds of individual fragments and even entire skeletons of fossil pangolins. However, not all dinosaurs were giants, among them there were separate species, which nature, as if in mockery, endowed with the growth of a chicken. These tiny creatures darted in numerous flocks among the thickets of relic ferns, trying not to get under the feet of their huge relatives and looking for even smaller prey.

Why, until recently, scientists knew so little about these amazing crumbs? It was their small stature that played a cruel joke on them. The bones of these dinosaurs were so light and fragile that they did not stand the test of time and practically did not survive to this day. Only a few finds allowed these small reptiles to make themselves known.

This pangolin has gained fame as the smallest predator of the Jurassic period. Its length did not exceed a meter, and its weight reached only two kilograms. He moved on fast hind legs, had a long tail and a movable head. The nimble dinosaur hunted insects and lizards. In total, three Compsognathus skeletons were found. Two of them were found on the territory of Europe in the middle of the nineteenth and at the end of the twentieth century, and one skeleton was preserved in Russia and was found quite recently, in 2010. Thanks to these findings, scientists were able to restore the appearance and habits of the fossil dinosaur.

Nkvebasaurus
The only fragment of the skeleton of this pangolin was found in 2000 in Africa, near the Sahara desert. Most likely the remains belonged to the cub. The structural features of these lizards include the presence of long fingers, which made it possible to capture prey. The so-called stomach stones, which are usually intended for grinding plant foods, have been preserved in the intestines. This allowed scientists to conclude that the nquebasaurs are omnivores. In length, the dinosaur did not exceed a meter and was a contemporary of Compsognathus.

Scipionyx
The perfectly preserved skeleton of this pangolin was found in Italy at the end of the twentieth century. The skeleton that belonged to a baby dinosaur pleased scientists with an extensive base for research, because the fossilized remains preserved the structure of not only the soft tissues of the animal, but also its internal organs. Most likely, the body of the lizard was covered with primitive feathers. He moved on his hind legs, supporting his body with the help of his tail. The size of adults, according to scientists, reached two meters. The dinosaur lived in the Cretaceous period and was a predator. In any case, scientists found lizards and fish among the undigested food residues.

An unimaginable event occurred about 251 million years ago, which significantly influenced subsequent eras. The name given by scientists to this event sounds like the Permian-Tertiary extinction, or the Great Dying.

It became a formative boundary between two geological periods - the Permian and the Triassic, or, in other words, between the Paleozoic and the Mesozoic. It took a little time for most marine and terrestrial species to cease their existence.

These events contributed to the formation of a group of archosaurs on land (the most prominent representatives are dinosaurs) and the so-called. "sea dinosaurs".

Because it would not be correct to call dinosaurs marine, we put such a phrase as “marine dinosaurs” in quotation marks and ask you to treat such an “amateurish” definition with indulgence later in the article. - Ed..

Marine reptiles inhabited the water areas of the Mesozoic along with land dinosaurs. They also disappeared at the same time - about 65.5 million years ago. The reason was the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction.

In this article, we want to introduce you to a selection of the 10 most striking and ferocious representatives of the "marine dinosaurs".

Shastasaurus is a genus of "dinosaurs" that existed more than 200 million years ago - the end of the Triassic period. According to scientists, their habitat was the territory of modern North America and China.

Shastasaur remains have been found in California, British Columbia, and the Chinese province of Guizhou.

Shastasaurus belongs to the ichthyosaurs - marine predators similar to modern dolphins. Being the largest reptile in the water, individuals could grow to unimaginable sizes: body length - 21 meters, weight - 20 tons.

But, despite their large size, the Shastasaurs were not exactly terrible predators. They ate by sucking, and ate mainly fish.

Dakosaurus - saltwater crocodiles that lived more than 100.5 million years ago: late Jurassic - early Cretaceous.

The first remains were discovered in Germany, and later the territory of their habitat was expanded from England to Russia and Argentina.

Dacosaurs were large, carnivorous animals. The maximum length of the body, reptilian and fish-like at the same time, did not exceed 6 meters.

Scientists who have studied the structure of the teeth of this species believe that the dracosaurus was the main predator during the period of residence.

Dracosaurs hunted exclusively for large prey.

Thalassomedon - "dinosaurs", belonging to the group of pliosaurs. Translated from Greek - "sea lord." They lived 95 million years ago in the territory of the North. America.

The length of the body reached 12.5 meters. Huge flippers, which allowed him to swim at incredible speed, could grow up to 2 meters. The size of the skull was 47 cm, and the teeth were about 5 cm. The main diet was fish.

The dominance of these predators persisted until the late Cretaceous period, and ceased only with the advent of mosasaurs.

Nothosaurus - "sea lizards" that existed in the Triassic period - about 240-210 million years ago. They were found on the territory of Russia, Israel, China, North Africa.

Scientists believe that notosaurs are relatives of pliosaurs, another type of deep-sea predators.

Nothosaurs were extremely aggressive predators, and their body reached a length of up to 4 m. The limbs were webbed. There were 5 long fingers, intended both for movement on land and for swimming.

The teeth of predators were sharp, outwardly directed. Most likely, notosaurs ate fish and squid. It is believed that they attacked from an ambush, using their sleek reptilian physique to approach food unnoticed, thereby catching it by surprise.

A complete Nothosaurus skeleton is in the Natural History Museum, Berlin.

Sixth on our list of marine dinosaurs is the Tylosaurus.

Tylosaurus is a species of mosasaur. A large predatory "lizard" that lived in the oceans 88-78 million years ago - the end of the Cretaceous period.

Huge tylosaurs reached 15 meters in length, thus being the dominant predators of their time.

The diet of tylosaurs was varied: fish, large predatory sharks, small mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, and waterfowl.

Thalattoarchon is a marine reptile that existed during the Triassic period - 245 million years ago.

The first fossils discovered in Nevada in 2010 provided scientists with new insights into the rapid recovery of ecosystems after the Great Dying.

The found skeleton - part of the skull, spine, pelvic bones, part of the hind fins - was the size of a school bus: about 9 m in length.

Talattoarchon was an apex predator, growing up to 8.5 m.

Tanystropheus - lizard-like reptiles that existed 230 - 215 million years ago - the middle Triassic period.

Tanystrofey grew up to 6 meters in length, had a 3.5-meter elongated and movable neck.

They were not exclusively aquatic inhabitants: most likely, they could lead both aquatic and semi-aquatic lifestyles, hunting near the shore. Tanystrophei are predators that ate fish and cephalopods.

Liopleurodon are large carnivorous marine reptiles. They lived about 165-155 million years ago - the boundary of the middle and late Jurassic periods.

Typical dimensions of Liopleurodon are 5-7 meters in length, weight - 1-1.7 tons. It is believed that the most famous large representative was more than 10 meters in length.

Scientists believe that the jaws of these reptiles reached 3 m.

During its period, Liopleurodon was considered an apex predator, dominating the food chain.

They hunted from ambush. They fed on cephalopods, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, sharks and other large animals.

Mosasaurus - reptiles of the late Cretaceous period - 70-65 million years ago. Habitat - the territory of modern Western Europe, North America.

The first remains were discovered in 1764 near the river Meuse.

The appearance of the mosasaurus is a mixture of whale, fish and crocodile. There were hundreds of sharp teeth.

They preferred to eat fish, cephalopods, turtles and ammonites.

Research scientists suggest that mosasaurs may be distant relatives of modern monitor lizards and iguanas.

The first place is rightfully occupied by a prehistoric shark, which is considered a truly terrible creature.

Carcharocles lived 28.1-3 million ago - the Cenozoic era.

This is one of the largest predators in the history of marine life. It is considered the ancestor of the great white shark - the most terrible and strongest predator today.

The length of the body reached up to 20 m, and the weight - up to 60 tons.

Megalodons hunted cetaceans and other large aquatic animals.

An interesting fact is that some cryptozoologists believe that this predator could have survived to the present. But, fortunately, apart from the found huge 15-centimeter teeth, there is no other evidence.