A young marine crocodile of the Upper Jurassic was an indigestible meal for large predators to such an extent that it was regurgitated: it happened 150 million years ago and the group coordinated by Giovanni Serafini, from the 'University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and Luca Giusberti, of the University of Padua.
By studying the fossil remains present in the Museum of Geology and Paleontology of the University of Padua, the two researchers discovered that they belonged to a young specimen of marine reptile that was regurgitated 150 million years ago: it is the first of its kind reported among the of his fellows and the third in a regurgitalitis in the whole world.
Images relating to research conducted on the fossil of a Jurassic reptile (source: Giovanni Serafini/University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
In 1980, the geologist from Feltre Danilo Giordano discovered at Ponte Serra, in the province of Belluno, the skeletal remains of a small teleosauroid reptile (a group of marine animals close to crocodiles) in a slab of Rosso Ammonitico Veronese, a geological formation famous for its mining in Veneto.
Although the find had been exhibited for some years at the Museum of geology and paleontology of the University of Padua, it had received little attention until 2021.
During a review of the museum's marine reptiles by the authors of the research, they had noticed that the exhibit had several unusual characteristics: the small vertebrae, the elements of the pelvis and the osteoderms (i.e. the bony 'shields' typical of crocodiles and their similar ) of the sample appeared in fact grouped in a single mass and greatly overlapping each other.
It was highly unlikely, according to the researchers, that that particular conformation was the result of physical processes that took place in the environment in which the remains were fossilized, i.e. a fairly deep sea with a seabed not affected by currents.
Instead, it was much more plausible that the find was a mass of skeletal elements passed from the alimentary canal of another animal.
