(CNN Spanish) - In Argentina, researchers conducted the first study of the fossil of a giant fish that inhabited the Patagonia region in the late Cretaceous period, belonging to the genus Xiphactinus. With about six meters in length, it is considered one of the largest predatory fish that existed on the planet.
The main author of this research, Julieta de Pasqua, told the Science, Technology and Society Agency belonging to the National University of La Matanza (UNLaM) this Monday that it is the first specimen of this species found in Argentina. Scientists studied the skull, more specifically the mouth, and also a vertebra of the specimen. Although it was detected more than 70 years ago in the province of Chubut, its remains had not been previously studied and had remained preserved in the collections of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences.
CTyS-UNLaM Agency
Until now, there were only records of Xiphactinus in the northern hemisphere, although according to the study coordinated by de Pasqua, a specimen was also found in Venezuela.
These giant fish were characterized by having a skull full of pointed teeth, which, according to the researchers, formed a kind of suction tube with which they captured their prey.
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The study, in which researchers from the Comparative Anatomy Laboratory (LACEV) of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences (MACN), the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (Conicet) and the Azara Foundation participated, was recently published in the Australian journal of paleontology Alcheringa under the title “First record of the ichthyodectiform fish Xiphactinus (Teleostei) in Argentine Patagonia” (“First record of the ichthyodectiform fish Xiphactinus (Teleostei) from Patagonia, Argentina”).
CTyS-UNLaM Agency
Fossil