I Wish I Was An Ancient Marine Reptile That Would Be So Cool - Tumblr Posts

Marine paleontology has a grip on my heart that I cannot even begin to describe. Wow

Result from the #paleostream For some times now I have been fascinated by the Jialingjiang Formation and it's bizarre content. It's best known for the hupehsuchians, the only place and time they are known from. But there are quite a few other critters as well.

here the little size chart that I made yesterday in preparation. Fun fact about the Jialingjiang Formation: we have not a single fish fossil so far, only incho fossils indicate that that they were present too. The reptiles however, are often preserved fantastically!

Here some examples of hupehsuchians and other animals from there. After some digging, people from our Discord server also found some invertebrates to include in the image.

The environment of this formation was apparently extreme: very warm water, high salinity (lots of potassium), arid climate over the waves (it was a hot soup). This and the relative isolation of the giant lagoon these animals lived in, potentially lead to a lot of endemism.

Btw. I came back to this formation because of the recent Hupehsuchus filter feeding paper. I think it's a fascinating topic. However I'm not sure I can agree with the idea that this animal would be a continuous ram feeder, similar to right whales.

While that fits the probably rather slow locomotion of the animal the jaws look more like those of Rorqual whales. So how does that fit? Thankfully a friend noticed that, while torso and tail are rather stiff, the neck is quite flexible...

so a potential strategy I could imagine here is that they thrashed their heads left and right into clouds of shrimp/plankton, similar to how some crocodiles do it to catch small fish. Let me known what you think. I'm looking forward to more research into these animals.