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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

An extinct reptile’s last meal shows it was a grip-and-tear killer

Fossilized ichthyosaur offers a prehistoric ‘Kinder Surprise’ for researchers.
Huge chunk of rock with long, slender fossil that has a raised lump in the middle.

A fossilized marine reptile’s bellyful of a second, slightly smaller marine reptile is visible as a block protruding from its abdomen. Credit: Ryosuke Motani

Palaeontologists examining the five-metre-long fossil of an ancient sea creature called an ichthyosaur were stunned to find the headless remains of a four-metre-long reptile in its stomach. The find lends weight to the theory that ichthyosaurs were top predators.

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Nature 584, 499 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02436-9

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