- The ‘Blue Dragon’ was an ancient apex predator as large as a Great White Shark
- Its large flippers and dorsal fin make this lizard unique among Mosasaurs
It’s one of the most famous monsters of science fiction.
And now scientists have discovered the real-life Godzilla – a huge aquatic lizard that dominated the Pacific seas 72 million years ago.
The Wakayama Soryu, meaning Blue Dragon, was as big as a Great White Shark and used its four huge flippers to move quickly through the water.
And, while it might not be quite as large as the radioactive Godzilla, this newly discovered creature is completely unique.
Professor Takuya Konishi of the University of Cincinnati who classified the specimen, said: ‘Immediately it was something I had never seen before.’
The huge mosasaur was uncovered around the Aridagawa River in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan.
Its skeleton was discovered accidentally in 2016 by study co-author Akihiro Misaki during a search for ammonite fossils.
Misaki stumbled onto a dark bone in the sandstone which turned out to be a vertebra of the most complete specimen of a mosasaur ever discovered in Japan or the Northwestern Pacific.
It then took four years to carefully remove the skeleton from the sandstone it had been trapped in.
Professor Konishi says that he named the sea monster after the prefecture where it was discovered and the dragons of Japanese mythology.
‘In China, dragons make thunder and live in the sky. They became aquatic in Japanese mythology,’ he said.
The research paper published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology classifies this as a type of mosasaur – a giant prehistoric lizard.
Mosasaurs are not dinosaurs, and are actually more closely related to modern lizards and snakes.
They were the apex predators of prehistoric oceans from about 100 million to 66 million years ago.
They usually preyed on smaller fish, although some fossils have shown that they would also eat other members of their own species.
Fossil remains of Mosasaurs have now been found all over the world from Antarctica to the Sahara Desert.
They existed around the same time as the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and at 36ft (11 metres) long, the biggest specimens ever discovered were almost as large.
Mosasaurs were also wiped out when an asteroid struck what is now the Gulf of Mexico, triggering the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.
However, the classification of the Blue Dragon is not quite so simple.
Uniquely among mosasaurs, the Japanese specimen’s rear flippers are larger than its front pair and are even longer than its head.
There is also evidence that it had a dorsal fin like a shark or dolphin – something otherwise never seen among mosasuars.
Professor Konishi discovered that neural spines along the fossil’s vertebrae were very similar to a harbour porpoise.
The scientists argue that the distinct differences in the neural spines from one part of the backbone match those found in today’s dolphins and toothed whales.
The researchers believe that the Blue Dragon would have used its large front fins to manoeuvre rapidly while, like on a plane, the rear thins provide pitch to dive or rise to the surface.
Meanwhile, like other mososaurs, the creature would use its massive tail to provide the rapid acceleration that made it a deadly predator.
Professor Konishi said: ‘We lack any modern analogue that has this kind of body morphology — from fish to penguins to sea turtles — none has four large flippers they use in conjunction with a tail fin.’
Some other prehistoric sea creatures such as the mosasaur also used large paddle fins but none did so as well as using a large tail.
‘It opens a whole can of worms that challenges our understanding of how mosasaurs swim,’ said Professor Konishi.
‘It’s a question just how all five of these hydrodynamic surfaces were used. Which were for steering? Which for propulsion?’
Dr. Thomas Hughes is a UK-based scientist and science communicator who makes complex topics accessible to readers. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
