Scientists have discovered a 246 million-year-old marine reptile fossil, the oldest of its kind to be found in the Southern Hemisphere, shining a new light on the early evolution of marine mammals.
The greatest mass extinction event in the fossil record – known as “The Great Dying” – occurred some 252 million years ago, wiping out some 95% of species on land and sea. What followed was the emergence of new creatures that evolved from those that survived, including reptiles that evolved from living on land to living at sea. Sauropterygians were ancient aquatic reptiles that existed for around 180 million years during the Mesozoic era, 251 to 66 million years ago.
A single nothosaur vertebra was found in a loose bolder along the Balmacaan Stream at the base of Mount Harper in New Zealand in 1978, according to a university press release. Many fossils are being found all the time, and this material was deposited in New Zealand’s National Paleontological Collection, Kear said. The now-late paleontologist Robert Ewan Fordyce alerted him to the find but the coronavirus pandemic delayed researchers travelling to look at it until last year.
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