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Science Quickly

Ancient Marine Reptiles Had Familiar Gear

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2018

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ichthyosaurs had traits in common with turtles and modern marine mammals, like blubber and countershading camouflage. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visitacolkot.co.j.p.

0:23.9

That's y-A-K-U-L-T-C-O-J-P.

0:28.4

When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.7

This is Scientific American's 60-second science.

0:37.2

I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

0:39.0

Long before dolphins swam the seas, their near-lookalike ikhthosaurs inhabited the Earth's oceans.

0:45.1

Now scientists say those ancient seafaring reptiles may have had more in common with modern-day sea turtles and marine mammals than we knew.

0:52.9

Over time, a dead animal's bones can be slowly replaced

0:55.7

by minerals, leaving behind a rocky fossil. The researchers demineralize the 180 million-year-old

1:02.3

fossil of an ectheosaur, and it left behind soft, flexible tissues. Which is kind of amazing.

1:08.3

Yohan Lindegrain, a paleontologist at Lund University in Sweden.

1:12.1

It turns out that the skin is still there with cells and cellular organelles

1:17.4

and even traces of the original biomolecular makeup.

1:21.5

Those remains revealed that the Icthiosaurus sported camouflage,

1:24.9

appropriate for its underwater environment.

1:27.2

Light on the bottom, darker on top,

1:29.3

just like many marine animals have today. The researchers also found a black, glossy substance

1:34.7

that was harder to identify, so they collected dead sea turtles and porpoises and mimicked

1:40.4

fossilization by heating and squashing the creature's skin, which led them to realize

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