2009-12-16 23:34:14
Tanystropheus is a fossil reptile that lived 240 million years ago, in the middle Triassic. It belongs to the extinct group of prolacertiformes, and although its general appearance was similar to modern lizards, it was more closely related to crocodiles and dinosaurs.
The most striking feature of Tanystropheus was its neck. Tanystropheus’s neck measured three meters, half the animal’s total length, and yet it was made up of only twelve long vertebrae, which were also linked together by cervical ribs. It was a very rigid neck, which was kept in a horizontal position and had very little mobility.
Tanystropheus lived on the shores of an inland sea called the Tethys Sea, which occupied what is now southern Europe. His bones have been found in England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Israel. With his narrow snout and long, sharp teeth, Tanystropheus was a fisherman, but he rarely ventured into the water. From the shore, it used its extremely long neck like a fishing rod: : with its neck placed horizontally on the surface of the water, it waited for a fish or cephalopod to come within its reach; at that moment, he would throw his head down and catch it with his sharp teeth.
Another curious feature of Tanystropheus was its hindquarters. The hind legs and the base of the tail had huge muscles that served as a counterweight to the neck, to maintain balance. But, in addition, some specimens had large bones at the base of the tail whose function is unknown. If the individuals with those bones were males, it could be a copulatory organ, although they are too large and complex compared to those possessed by some lizards, almost as large as the pelvis. On the contrary, if it was the female, the bones could be the support of a bag like that of the marsupials, where they transported the eggs until they hatched. It is not known.
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