This fearsome marine reptile could measure up to six meters and had an “imposing jaw and teeth.”
That Lorraine once resembled the Bahamas may seem… impossible. However, the analysis of fossils found almost 40 years ago proves that the French department did, several million years ago, resemble a completely different landscape from today. In 1983, in Montois-la-Montagne, near Joeuf, exceptional fossils were discovered, revealing the remains of a formidable marine reptile known as… Lorrainosaurus (in honor of the region in which it was found). If the discovery dates back a few decades, a recent report in the journal Nature tells us more about the precise identity of the animal, which was a “murderer of the seas”, according to scientists.
This pliosaur, a marine predator from the dinosaur era, measured up to six meters long, enough to make today’s sharks pale in comparison. Dating back 170 million years, this predator has been on display since its discovery at the Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History. According to Ben Thuy, paleontologist from the Luxembourg Natural History Museum, interviewed by France Bleu, the in-depth study of the fossils reveals unique characteristics of Lorrainosaurus: “It hunted other large animals, a deduction that can be do by observing its imposing jaw and teeth, designed to capture large prey.”
According to the specialist site Livescience, pliosaurs fed, among other things, on sharks, sea turtles and other plesiosaurs. Its immense jaws allowed it to devour all kinds of prey.
Lorraine itself, at the time of Lorrainosaurus, was “a kind of subtropical archipelago”, according to him. Evolving in a shallow sea which covered almost all of Jurassic France, with the exception of the Armorican Massif, the Ardennes and the Massif Central, the climate of the region was equivalent to that of… the present-day Bahamas. A surreal picture of a warm sea with coral reefs, today difficult to imagine when we think of Lorraine as we know it.
Although the Lorrainosaurus is a rare specimen, according to the researchers, the idea of ??discovering other similar fossils in other regions is not excluded. Experts say these gigantic marine reptiles traveled vast distances in search of prey, which could pave the way for new discoveries in Britain, Germany, Poland or even Madagascar, where rocks from the same era can be found.
