In Depth
Chaohusaurus is a genus of ichthyosauromorph marine reptile that lived in sea waters around Asia during the early/mid Triassic. Chaohusaurus had a similar body plan to other primitive ichthyosaurs being more lizard-like than fish-like as seen in later ichthyosaurs. Still, the limbs of Chaohusaurus were adapted to form paddles, and the rear half of the tail dipped down slightly to form a paddle that was the primary form of forward locomotion.
At least one known specimen of Chaohusaurus shows embryos of young developing inside the body of an adult, confirming that Chaohusaurus was viviparous and did not have to return to the land to lay eggs. Therefore it is likely that Chaohusaurus spent their entire lives in the sea, hunting for small aquatic organisms such as fish and squid.
Further Reading
- [On the Triassic aquatic reptiles of China]. - Memoirs of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology. 9: 1–34. - C. C. Young & Z. Dong - 1972. - Observations on Triassic ichthyosaurs. Part VII. New data on the osteology of Chaohusaurus geishanensis YOUNG & DONG, 1972 from the Lower Triassic of Anhui (China). - Neues Jahrbuch f�r Geologie und Pal�ontologie, Abhandlungen. 219: 305–327. - M. W. Maisch - 2001. - A new Triassic primitive ichthyosaur from Yuanan, South China. - Acta Geologica Sinica 87(3):672-677. - X. Chen, P. M. Sander, L. Cheng & X. Wang - 2013. - The new ichthyosauriform Chaohusaurus brevifemoralis (Reptilia, Ichthyosauromorpha) from Majiashan, Chaohu, Anhui Province, China. - PeerJ 7(e7561). - J. Huang, R. Motani, D. Jiang, A. Tintori, O. Rieppel, M. Zhou, X. Ren & R. Zhang - 2019.
