{"id":16339,"date":"2023-10-27T08:03:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T02:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=16339"},"modified":"2025-04-04T08:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T03:06:13","slug":"lorrainosaurus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/lorrainosaurus\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Lorrainosaurus?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Scientists\u00a0first unearthed\u00a0this sea monster&#8217;s\u00a0fossils in 1983.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>But\u00a0in a new study, researchers re-analyzed the remains and\u00a0found that the\u00a0predator\u00a0belonged to a previously unknown genus (group) of species\u00a0and represented the oldest\u00a0&#8220;megapredatory&#8221;\u00a0pliosaur on record.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0fossils were unearthed in\u00a0the former region of Lorraine (now part of Grand Est) in\u00a0northeastern France.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About Lorrainosaurus<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is the\u00a0oldest mega-predatory pliosaur.<\/li>\n<li>It\u00a0lived during the ancient Middle Jurassic era in marine environments.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0regions in which it lived 170 million years ago are now located\u00a0in northern France.<\/li>\n<li>This giant reptile probably reached over 6 meters from snout to tail.<\/li>\n<li>The animal\u00a0had jaws over 1.3 m long with large conical teeth and a\u00a0bulky \u2018torpedo-shaped\u2019 body\u00a0propelled by four flipper-like limbs.<\/li>\n<li>They were\u00a0ecological equivalents of today\u2019s killer whales and would have\u00a0eaten a range of prey, including squid-like\u00a0cephalopods,\u00a0large fish and other marine reptiles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What are Pliosaurs?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Pliosaurs were a type of\u00a0short-necked plesiosaur:\u00a0marine reptiles\u00a0built for speed\u00a0compared to their long-necked cousins.<\/li>\n<li>Also\u00a0known as pliosauroids, these creatures\u00a0were not dinosaurs but\u00a0distant cousins of modern turtles.<\/li>\n<li>They had\u00a0four large flippers, large heads, extremely powerful jaws and\u00a0enormous teeth, and they\u00a0hunted fish, cephalopod\u00a0mollusks, and other marine reptiles.<\/li>\n<li>They\u00a0lived between 220 million years ago (Triassic period) and 70 million years ago\u00a0(Cretaceous period) and were mostly found\u00a0in the prehistoric seas that covered modern-day Europe.<\/li>\n<li>Famous examples, such as Pliosaurus and Kronosaurus, some of the world\u2019s largest pliosaurs, were absolutely\u00a0enormous, with\u00a0body lengths exceeding 10 m.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is the Jurassic Period?<\/h3>\n<p>The Jurassic period (199.6 million to 145.5 million years ago) was characterized by a warm, wet climate that gave rise to lush vegetation and abundant life. Many new dinosaurs emerged\u2014in great numbers. Among them were stegosaurs, brachiosaurs, allosaurs, and many others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/sea-monster-surprise-ancient-pliosaur-remains-challenge-what-we-knew\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Sea Monster Surprise: Ancient Pliosaur Remains Challenge What We Knew<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lorrainosaurus is the oldest mega-predatory pliosaur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":16340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}