Creationism in Crisis - What Is a 170-Million-Year-Old Pliosaur Doing on a 10,000-Year-Old Earth?

The oldest megapredatory pliosaur, Lorrainosaurus, in the ancient Middle Jurassic sea that covered what is today northern France 170 million years ago.

Artwork by Joschua Knüppe (Germany).

Model of the head of Lorrainosaurus keileni.

Model By 10 Tons

Ancient sea monster remains reveal oldest mega-predatory pliosaur | Uppsala University

Q. What is a 170-Million-Year-Old Pliosaur Doing on a 10,000-Year-Old Earth?

A. Refuting Creationism and showing it to be a childish counter-factual superstition, of course, like everything else that exited in the 99.97% of Earth's history that occurred before 'creation week'.

These fossils of this predatory marine reptile from the Mesozoic Era were recovered in 1983 from a road cutting near Metz, Loraine, France and have now been examined by an international team of palaeontologists from the Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld in Germany, the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, the Natural History Museum in Luxembourg and The Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University in Sweden, co-led by Sven Sachs of Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld, Germany and Daniel Madzia of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

They have shown them to be of a new pliosaur genus: Lorrainosaurus.

What were the pliosaurs? Plesiosaurs were a group of extinct marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era, which spanned from approximately 251 million to 66 million years ago. Plesiosaurs are often confused with another group of marine reptiles called "pliosaurs," so let's clarify both:

1. Plesiosaurs: Plesiosaurs were characterized by their long necks, streamlined bodies, and four paddle-like limbs. They were well-adapted for a marine lifestyle and are known for their diverse body shapes and sizes. Plesiosaurs came in various species, with some having relatively short necks and others having extremely long necks. These reptiles likely fed on a diet of fish and other aquatic organisms. Plesiosaurs are believed to have gone extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, alongside the dinosaurs.
2. Pliosaurs: Pliosaurs were another group of marine reptiles that lived during the same time as the plesiosaurs, during the Mesozoic Era. They were distinct from plesiosaurs in that they had short necks and large, powerful jaws. Pliosaurs were apex predators of their time and were known for their formidable hunting abilities. One of the most famous pliosaurs was the "Liopleurodon," which was featured in documentaries and popular culture. Pliosaurs, like plesiosaurs, also went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Both plesiosaurs and pliosaurs were members of the order Plesiosauria and are part of a fascinating chapter in the history of marine reptiles. Their fossils have provided valuable insights into the diversity of life during the Mesozoic Era and the adaptations that allowed them to thrive in ancient seas.

A press release from Upsala University, Sweden, explains the discovery and its significance:

Pliosaurs were a type of plesiosaur with short necks and massive skulls. They appeared over 200 million years ago, but remained minor components of marine ecosystems until suddenly developing into enormous apex predators. The new study shows that this adaptive shift followed feeding niche differentiation and the global decline of other predatory marine reptiles over 170 million years ago. Lorrainosaurus is the oldest large-bodied pliosaur represented by an associated skeleton. It had jaws over 1.3 m long with large conical teeth and a bulky ‘torpedo-shaped’ body propelled by four flipper-like limbs.

Lorrainosaurus was one of the first truly huge pliosaurs. It gave rise to a dynasty of marine reptile mega-predators that ruled the oceans for around 80 million years.

Sven Sachs, first author
Abteilung Geowissenschaften
Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld, Adenauerplatz 2, Bielefeld, Germany.

This giant reptile probably reached over 6 m from snout to tail, and lived during the early Middle Jurassic period. Intriguingly, very little is known about plesiosaurs from that time.

Our identification of Lorrainosaurus as one of the earliest mega-predatory pliosaurs demonstrates that these creatures emerged immediately after a landmark restructuring of marine predator ecosystems across the Early-to-Middle Jurassic boundary, some 175 to 171 million years ago. This event profoundly affected many marine reptile groups and brought mega-predatory pliosaurids to dominance over ‘fish-like’ ichthyosaurs, ancient marine crocodile relatives, and other large-bodied predatory plesiosaurs.

Daniel Madzia, corresponding author
Institute of Paleobiology
Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda, Warsaw, Poland

Pliosaurs were some of the most successful marine predators of their time.

Famous examples, such as Pliosaurus and Kronosaurus – some of the world’s largest pliosaurs – were absolutely enormous with body-lengths exceeding 10 m. They were ecological equivalents of today’s Killer whales and would have eaten a range of prey including squid-like cephalopods, large fish and other marine reptiles. These have all been found as preserved gut contents.

Benjamin Kear, senior co-author
Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Researcher in Palaeontology
Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University, Upsala, Sweden.

The recovered bones and teeth of Lorrainosaurus represent remnants of what was once a complete skeleton that decomposed and was dispersed across the ancient sea floor by currents and scavengers.

The discovery is published, open access, in Scientific Reports:

Abstract

The emergence of gigantic pliosaurid plesiosaurs reshaped the trophic structure of Mesozoic marine ecosystems, and established an  ~ 80 million-year (Ma) dynasty of macropredatory marine reptiles. However, the timescale of their ‘defining’ trait evolution is incompletely understood because the fossil record of gigantic pliosaurids is scarce prior to the late-Middle Jurassic (Callovian),  ~ 165.3 Ma. Here, we pinpoint the appearance of large body size and robust dentitions to early-Middle Jurassic (Bajocian) pliosaurids from northeastern France and Switzerland. These specimens include a new genus that sheds light on the nascent diversification of macropredatory pliosaurids occurring shortly after the Early-Middle Jurassic transition, around  ~ 171 Ma. Furthermore, our multivariate assessment of dental character states shows that the first gigantic pliosaurids occupied different morphospace from coeval large-bodied rhomaleosaurid plesiosaurs, which were dominant in the Early Jurassic but declined during the mid-Jurassic, possibly facilitating the radiation and subsequent ecomorph acme of pliosaurids. Finally, we posit that while the emergence of macropredatory pliosaurids was apparently coordinated with regional faunal turnover in the epeiric basins of Europe, it paralleled a globally protracted extinction of other higher trophic-level marine reptiles that was not completed until after the earliest-Late Jurassic,  ~ 161.5 Ma.

Figure 1

Skeletal remains of the holotype (MNHNL BU159) of Lorrainosaurus keileni. (a) Reconstruction in lateral view showing recovered elements. (b) Tooth crown with root. (c) Posterior section of mandible in lateral view. (d) Glenoid section of mandible in articular view. (e) Complete mandible in ventral view. (f) Enlargement of the mandibular symphysis. (g) Coracoid in dorsal view.

Figure 3

Mandible from the holotype (MNHNL BU159) of Lorrainosaurus keileni in dorsal view: (a) photograph; (b) graphic illustrating individual bones and important structures.

Figure 5

Mandible from the holotype (MNHNL BU159) of Lorrainosaurus keileni in right (top) and left (bottom) lateral views: (a) photograph; (b) graphic illustrating individual bones and important structures.

Figure 7

Left coracoid from the holotype (MNHNL BU159) of Lorrainosaurus keileni in (a) dorsal, and (b) ventral views.

Figure 2

Maxilla fragment from the holotype (MNHNL BU159) of Lorrainosaurus keileni in (a) lateral, (b) dorsal, (c) ventral, and (d) medial views.

Figure 4

Mandible from the holotype (MNHNL BU159) of Lorrainosaurus keileni in ventral view: (a) photograph; (b) graphic illustrating individual bones and important structures.

Figure 6

Postcranial elements from the holotype (MNHNL BU159) of Lorrainosaurus keileni. Left cervical rib in (a) posterior, (b) lateral, (c) dorsal, (d) anterior, (e) medial, and (f) ventral views. (g) Dorsal rib section. (h) Gastral rib. (i) Probable mesopodial element in dorsoventral view. Phalanx in (j) dorsoventral, (k) anteroposterior, (l) proximal, and (m) ventral views.

Figure 8

Phylogenetic relationships of Lorrainosaurus keileni. (a) Strict consensus and (b) majority-rule consensus trees from the unweighted parsimony analysis (UPWa); (c) strict consensus tree from the weighted parsimony analysis (IWa) with K = 6; (d) strict consensus tree from IWa with K = 28.641590; (e) life reconstruction of Lorrainosaurus keileni ; blue shading indicates L. keileni and PIMUZ A/III0521. Numbers at nodes indicate (a) Bremer support values in UPWa; (b) percentage of trees reconstructed in UPWa; (c,d) symmetric resampling.

Artwork by Joschua Knüppe

Click on an image for an enlarged view

Sachs, S., Madzia, D., Thuy, B., Kear, B. P.
The rise of macropredatory pliosaurids near the Early-Middle Jurassic transition.
Sci Rep 13, 17558 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43015-y

Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Prediction:
Creationists will dismiss this with:

1. The scientists got the date wrong by an order of magnitude that makes 10,000 years look like 170 million years.
2. The scientists are lying and/or forged the fossils.
3. God created the Universe/Earth to look old to test our faith, but the Bible tells the truth.
4. Satan planted them and made them look that old.
5. I don't believe it so it can't be true.
6. I'm not going to even think about that in case I wonder if I might be wrong and I'll have to stop pretending to know more than the experts.

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