zenosanalytic reblogged
Research alert! Imagine putting flippers on a 24-foot Komodo dragon. That’s how Amelia Zietlow, a Ph.D. student at the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, describes Jormungandr walhallaensis, a newly identified species of mosasaur that was named in part after a sea serpent in Norse mythology.
Living some 80 million years ago during the Cretaceous, this mosasaur is thought to represent a transitional period between other well-known species. In addition to flippers and a stumpy, shark-like tail, Jormungandr had a bony ridge on its skull that would have given it the appearance of having “angry eyebrows.”
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