Sea monsters, ancient reptile eater

Mark McMenamin, palaentolog Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, USA, revealed the hypothesis that in the past, there were sea monsters of ancient marine reptiles eat the usual kinds of ichthyosaurs. Though ichthyosaurs is known as the main predators in the ocean-sized bus and has a creepy teeth.
This hypothesis is based on an analysis of fossil ichthyosaurs of 14 meters from the species Shonisaurus popularis of Triassic period between 248-206 million years ago that there were in Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada. During this time, the death of a fossil Shonisaurus popularis in Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is still a mystery.
Previous studies in the 1950s by Charles Lewis Camp of Ubniversity of California, Berkeley mention that the species had died by toxic algae. However, there is no evidence that the species had died in the area of ​​shallow seas. Another study by Jennifer Hogler of the University of California Museum of Paleontology just mention that the species had died in the deep sea.
McMenamin is curious about these puzzles do research with his wife, Dianna Schulte McMenamin. He said that when there is controversy about the depth of the death of the species, there must be something interesting. And when McMenamin find the fossils, he noticed a strange bone structure.
Ichthyosaurs did not seem to directly killed and eaten. Bones were rearranged, taken to a particular place before the kill. Eating behavior was found in the modern octopus. McMenamin said there are signs that indicate that an ancient sea monster becomes the hypothesis seemed to sink the ichthyosaurs and break his neck. The composition of spinal animals ichthyosaurs suggests the suction-Coleoidea cephalopod group that includes octopus and squid - squid.
The composition of the resulting bone could be a clue portrait of the real sea monster, which according to McMenamin similar to ancient octopus. But the possible ancient octopus kill the strongest predators in the ocean pyurba? McMenamin said this may be, at least based on the video "On the Brink: A Gallery of Wild Sharks" where octopus can kill a shark.
"We think that the cephalopods (ancient sea monster) in the Triassic period could also do the same. Other evidence that supports it, there are a lot of the broken ribs on fossil shonisaurus, suggesting that what happened was not an accident or a twisted neck," says McMenamin.
McMenamin hypothesis is interesting, but difficult to prove. If it is true that it is a group of ancient monster octopus, then the chances of finding fossils is very difficult. Until recently there was no physical evidence of the existence of the ancient sea monsters. Soft-bodied octopus, having only hard parts at the mouth and would not be preserved over millions of years.
Some scientists are skeptical of the hypothesis McMenamin, but McMenamin said, "We are ready with this. We had a very good case."