First located by amateur fossil hunters digging near Richmond, Queensland in 2019, this rare find shows an ichthyosaur that had just eaten a pterosaur — before being killed, beheaded, and partially eaten by a pliosaur, the 50-foot predator known as the “T. Rex of the ocean.”
Peter Trusler/Dinosaur Experiences AustraliaAn illustration of the events that created this fossil: an ichthyosaur eating a pterosaur, with a pliosaur lurking in the water beneath them, ready to strike.
In 2019, a group of amateur fossil hunters set out to explore a public “fossicking” site in Australia, where the public is welcome to search for gems, stones, and fossils. The group unearthed large fossilized bones, which they quickly turned over to Kronosaurus Korner museum. But when museum officials took a closer look, they realized that the fossil hunters had uncovered an extremely rare “three-tier predator interaction.”
The fossil hunters had found the bones of an ichthyosaur. But when museum officials examined the site where the ichthyosaur fossils had been found, they discovered the bones of a pterosaur, likely the ichthyosaur’s final meal. And because the ichthyosaur itself had seemingly been badly wounded before its death, they surmised that it had been killed by a pliosaur — the giant, crocodile-like predator known as the “T-rex of the ocean.”
The Discovery Of This Rare Cretaceous Fossil In The Australian Outback
According to a press release from Dinosaur Experiences Australia, the first of these Cretaceous remains was found in 2019, when fossil hunters Mike and Cathy Freeman alongside Gary and Barb Flewelling went to a “fossicking” site in Queensland. There, they stumbled upon some large fossilized bones, which they brought to the Kronosaurus Korner museum.
Three years after this so-called “bag of bones” arrived at the museum, Kronosaurus Korner curator Kevin Petersen returned to the fossicking site to take a closer look. While excavating the area where the fossil hunters had found the bones, he uncovered the “enormous” fossilized skeleton of a 20-foot ichthyosaur that dates back 100 million years.
Dinosaur Experiences AustraliaKronosaurus Korner curator Kevin Petersen at the Queensland fossicking site where the bones were originally discovered, and where he found even more bones three years later.
The discovery of the ichthyosaur, a large, dolphin-like reptile that prowled Earth’s prehistoric oceans, would have been incredible on its own. But Petersen and his team soon realized that there was another reptile near the ichthyosaur’s stomach — and that the ichthyosaur itself had died a sudden, violent death just after eating that reptile.
The Story Behind The Prehistoric Marine “Crime Scene” In Queensland
Like police detectives, the paleontologists carefully pieced the story together based on the evidence. As they later wrote in a study published in Gondwana Research, they found a “globular mass” that appeared to be the ichthyosaur’s stomach contents. There, they found the remains of a pterosaur, a large flying reptile — which the ichthyosaur possibly snatched out of the sky as it hunted fish.
This was an incredibly exciting find: It stands as the first known evidence that ichthyosaurs ate pterosaurs. But that wasn’t all that the researchers found.
Dinosaur Experiences AustraliaPlastered fossil samples that paleontologists found at the Queensland fossicking site.
The paleontologists also found that the ichthyosaur had seemingly died a gruesome death very soon after devouring the pterosaur. The ichthyosaur’s remains bore “enormous crushing bite marks, shattered bones, and missing sections,” which the paleontologists believe is likely indicative of an attack from a pliosaur, the fearsome apex predator that could reach up to 50 feet in length and was known as the “T-rex of the ocean.”
Though it’s also possible that the ichthyosaur was scavenged by the pliosaur, it seems likely that the ichthyosaur was attacked and killed, then at least partially eaten before its body sank to the seafloor, where it was preserved by the ocean mud.
“I was amazed by the size of the ichthyosaur, and shocked to see it littered with bite marks and partially exposed pterosaur remains behind the skull,” said Matt White, a research associate at the University of New England and the lead author of the new study.
Dinosaur Experiences AustraliaThe remains of the ichthyosaur, which had eaten a pterosaur not long before it died.
Those sentiments were seconded by fellow paleontologist Dean Lomax:
“It’s one of the clearest examples ever discovered of a three-tier predator interaction and offers an unprecedented snapshot of behaviour in Australia’s Cretaceous seas. This extraordinary fossil records a trophic interaction between a pterosaur eaten by an ichthyosaur that was then partly consumed by a giant pliosaur. It gives us direct evidence of behaviour in the Eromanga Sea [which once covered Queensland].”
Indeed, the fossils appear to capture a single violent moment from the age of the dinosaurs which, thanks to ocean mud and pure chance, was preserved in the Australian Outback for roughly 100 million years.
After reading about the stunning fossil that showed a pterosaur eaten by an ichthyosaur eaten by a pliosaur, look through this fascinating collection of dinosaur facts. Then, go inside the question of what exactly killed the dinosaurs.
