India was part of Gondwanaland, which included Australia, Africa, Antarctica, India, and South America. Instead, there were supercontinents or gigantic land masses that comprised of the continents that we know today. Before this, the world as we know it didn’t exist. Millions of years ago, a massive geological event called the Continental Drift took place. To understand this, we need to know how the Himalayas came to be formed. It’s hard to imagine that this vast expanse of weather-bleached land was once a thriving ocean bed, with fish and marine creatures populating the water. Climbers who have been to the top of Mount Everest brought back rocks in which the fossils of sea lilies were discovered. In Nepal, ammonites (marine cephalopods with shells) are found along the bed of the Kali Gandaki River. The villages of Komic, Mud, Hikkim (where you’ll find the world’s highest post office), Langza and Lalung lie along a belt of fossil-rich sediment in Spiti. The Spiti Valley is rife with evidence dating back to 540 million years ago and attracts palaeontologists from around the world. So how is it possible that marine fossils have been found in multiple locations in the Himalayas? These mighty mountains are hundreds of miles away from the closest sea. The land is arid and brown, and it looks like it’s been this way since the beginning of time. At these altitudes, the air is thin, and the temperatures are extreme. Some of the world’s highest peaks are in the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, which at 29,029 feet is the highest mountain in the world. DOI: 10.The mighty Himalayas, also known as ‘The Roof of the World’, rise up to an incredible height, disappearing into the clouds on some days. Naturwissenchaften, published online March 31, 2011. Not for Public Display: Backstage at the American Museum of Natural HistoryĬitation: " Direct evidence of hybodont shark predation on Late Jurassic ammonites." Romain Vullo.Unraveling the Nature of the Whorl-Toothed Shark.Earth's Most Stunning Natural Fractal Patterns.Shark-Bitten Crocodile Poop Fossils Found (No, Really).Unique Fossils Record the Dining Habits of Ancient Sharks.3) Illustration showing how hybodont sharks may have looked ( Nobu Tamura/Wikipedia). 2) Close-up of *Planohybodus tooth embedded in the ammonite shell (Romain Vullo/ Naturwissenschaften). *Images: 1) Fossilized ammonite shell and shark tooth found in an amateur collection (Romain Vullo/ Naturwissenschaften). “We should all take another good look at existing ammonite shells for evidence that they were prey.” “I think a lot more could be done,” Klompmaker said. As with the collectors' specimen, they might simply have been overlooked. However, paleontologist Adiël Klompmaker of Kent State University in Ohio thinks such fossils may be less unusual than Vullo thinks. “Unfortunately, such specimens are exceedingly rare.” “A complete skeleton with gut contents, or more tooth-embedded fossils, would be wonderful for making better conclusions about the ecological relationship here,” he said. To learn any more about the relationship between sharks and ammonites, however, Vullo said he needs to get his hands on similarly exceptional fossils. It could eat the soft part without biting the shell." "A scavenging shark wouldn't need to bite. "It's impossible to tell what happened with this ammonite, but I think it was bit and somehow escaped before dying," he said. Once an ammonite lost control, a shark could conveniently crush it. Vullo thinks such sharp teeth maimed ammonites by poking holes in their shells' air chambers, which the creatures used for stabilization and steering. He was able to match the teeth - one still embedded, two removed by the collector - to Planohybodus. After reading reports of shark-like bite marks in ammonite fossils, Vullo remembered seeing the fossil in an acquaintance’s collection and asked to study it.
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