An article published in the journal “Scientific Reports” describes the analysis of an ichthyosauriform reptile that lived at the beginning of the Triassic period, about 248 million years ago, in today’s Anhui province in China. Called Sclerocormus parviceps, it has very different characteristics from most other members of the same group. This shows that those marine reptiles had rapidly evolved and diversified after the great extinction at the end of the Permian period, far quicker than previously thought.
Marine life was affected in a particularly devastating way by the great extinction at the end of the Permian and it’s estimated that as many as 96% of marine species became extinct. For a long time scientists thought that the primordial marine reptiles evolved slowly after that catastrophe but in recent years new discoveries are showing that things went differently.
Not many fossils of marine reptiles dating from the Early Triassic have been found so each new species may force paleontologists to revise their theories. Just over two years ago a study suggested that new predators emerged rapidly at the beginning of the Triassic including marine reptiles and now this new research shows that even among the ichthyosauriforms evolution was rapid.
Ichthyosauriforms (Ichthyosauriformes) also include ichthyosaurs (order Ichthyosauria), whose appearance was superficially similar to that of today’s fish and cetaceans. Sclerocormus parviceps was around 1.6 meters (5.3 feet) long with a tail that alone had a length of about 92 centimeters (3 feet). Its characteristics are very different from those of its relatives and show a quick evolution with a considerable diversification occurred within a few million years.
Typically ichthyosaurs had long beak-like snouts and powerful tail fins. Many of them had conical teeth to capture their prey. Sclerocormus parviceps had a much shorter snout than ichthyosaurs, a long whip-like tail without fins and was toothless. Probably it used its snout to generate pressure and suck its food.
The discovery of Sclerocormus parviceps is very interesting because it gives us new clues about the recovery of ecosystems after the devastating extinction at the end of Permian. Every new fossil dating from Early Triassic allows us to better understand how life responds to such extreme environmental pressures.
