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Metashastasaurus

Say it: MET-ah-shas-tah-SORE-us

Name means: “near Shastasaurus”1

Ate: MeatIchthyosaursLate TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Metashastasaurus was a huge marine reptile that swam in the oceans during the Late Triassic, about 227 to 205 million years ago. It was not a dinosaur, but a kind of ichthyosaur, with a body like a dolphin and a long snout. It lived in the seas near what is now British Columbia, Canada.1 2

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

227 to 206 million years ago3

Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Fossils were found in the Pardonet Formation of British Columbia, Canada.2

Food

Meat1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Metashastasaurus was first named in 2001 by scientists Nicholls and Manabe.1

Its skeleton is very similar to other shastasaurid ichthyosaurs, but its shoulder blade and fibula (a leg bone) are shaped differently.2

Its skull has large diamond-shaped frontals (bones on top of the head) that enter the supratemporal fenestrae, which are openings in the skull.2

It had four proximal carpals (wrist bones) and four digits in its front limb, showing that earlier reconstructions were based on incomplete material.2

Metashastasaurus lived in a marine environment and was nektonic, meaning it swam actively in the open water.1

It gave birth to live young, like other ichthyosaurs, rather than laying eggs.1

AI-made picture of Metashastasaurus — An AI-made picture of how Metashastasaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Metashastasaurus was a dinosaur because it lived in the same time as dinosaurs.

Truth: Metashastasaurus was an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile, not a dinosaur. Ichthyosaurs lived in the sea and had fish-like bodies, while dinosaurs were land reptiles.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Metashastasaurus
Named by: Nicholls and Manabe 20013
Group: Ichthyosaurs
Family / clade: Shastasauridae3
Classification: Ichthyosauria > Ichthyosauromorpha3
Age of the rocks: 227 to 206 million years (Norian)3
Rock formations: Pardonet3
Countries: Canada3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Metashastasaurus was named by Nicholls and Manabe in 2001 after they studied new specimens from Pink Mountain, British Columbia. These specimens showed that the species previously called Shastasaurus neoscapularis was different enough to be placed in a new genus.2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether the genus Shastasaurus is valid, because its type species is based on poor fossils. Metashastasaurus was created to help clarify this, but the relationships between these ichthyosaurs are still not fully settled.2

Where the facts come from

PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
A new genus of ichthyosaur from the Late Triassic... : Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (ovid.com)
Metashastasaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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