The “Wakayama Blue Dragon,” 72 million years old, has been identified as one of the most ferocious monsters of all time and a completely new species never seen before.
After 17 years since the creature, referred to as the “blue dragon”, was discovered along the Aridagawa River in Wakayama City, Japan, scientists have classified it as a completely new and extremely dangerous species of ichthyosaur.
According to Science Alert, since the first fossil was found in 2006, a team led by paleontologist Akihiro Misaki from the Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History and Human History in Japan spent five years just extracting the skeleton from the rock.
Portrait of the Wakayama Blue Dragon – (Graphic: Takumi).
After many more years of restoration and research, they were able to provide a complete description of it in a scientific paper recently published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
The new species has been named Megapterygius wakayamaensis, a 6-meter-long ichthyosaur described as “as big as a bus” with a distinct body shape and a head somewhat resembling that of a crocodile.
It lived 72 million years ago, near the end of the Cretaceous period.
Ichthyosaurs were a group of massive and aggressive marine reptiles from the “Age of Dinosaurs,” with the largest species identified measuring up to 17 meters in length. Most were plump like modern dolphins, yet extremely agile, often sitting at the top of their food chain.
This “blue dragon” is no exception. Although referred to as a dragon, the graphic depiction of it shows a creature with a “torpedo” body, a blue back, a white belly, a relatively small head compared to its body, and paddle-like flippers.
According to the authors, the jaws and teeth of the “blue dragon” were capable of destroying nearly everything in the ocean, from shellfish and turtles to sharks, and even cannibalistic towards its own kind.
Paleontologist Takuya Konishi from the University of Cincinnati, a co-author, stated that he thought he understood ichthyosaurs until he encountered the Wakayama Blue Dragon.
This monster features unusually long paddles compared to all other ichthyosaurs worldwide, along with spine spikes resembling those of dolphins. It likely had a dorsal fin like a dolphin as well. Additionally, it possessed a strong tail for propulsion.
Overall, no contemporaneous monster possessed all the best hydrodynamic body parts like this.
In other words, this could be the strongest swimmer in the western Pacific, even the strongest in the world at that time, a combination that, along with its sharp teeth, made it a top predator.
