The fossil of a 70 million-year-old giant fish that lived with the dinosaurs was discovered in Patagnia, in southern Argentina – announced a team of researchers on Monday (6).
Argentine paleontologists “found the remains of a predatory fish that was over six meters long,” a statement said.
The discovery was recently published in the scientific journal “Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology”.
The large fish “swam in the seas of Patagonia at the end of the Cretaceous Period, when the temperature there was much more temperate than today,” they added in the note.
“The fossils of this carnivorous animal with pointed teeth and a reckless appearance were found in the vicinity of Lake Colhu Huapial, south of the province of Chubut”.
“His body was remarkably stylized and ended in a huge head with large jaws and fine needle-like teeth, several inches long,” report the scientists.
“There are records of these giant carnivorous fish in other parts of the world and there are even complete skeletons, some of which even preserve stomach contents,” said one of the authors of the research, Julieta de Pasqua.
So far, there were records of Xiphactinus only in the Northern Hemisphere, but a few years ago a specimen was found in Venezuela.
The Patagonian region is one of the world’s largest reservoirs of dinosaur fossils and other prehistoric species.
The work was the work of the Universidad Nacional de La Matanza, public, together with the Laboratory of Comparative Anatomy of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, with the National Council for Scientific and Technical Investigations (Conicet), also public, and the Azara Foundation.