The pliosaur scientists have called Predator X crushed his prey with a biting force of 33,000lb per square inch
A marine monster described as the most fearsome animal ever to swim in the oceans boasted a bite up to 11 times as strong as that of Tyrannosaurus rex.
The fossil remains of the huge pliosaur were dug up last summer from the permafrost on Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole.
Analysis revealed that it was a turbo-charged swimmer. Its front flippers allowed the creature, dubbed Predator X, to cruise along comfortably but when prey came into range the power of its hind flippers kicked in to provide extra acceleration.
Measurements of its jaw and the killing power of its dagger-like teeth have shown that it could bite down with a force of 33,000lb per square inch compared with T. rex’s 3,000lb per square inch. Alligators have the strongest bite today with about 2,500lb per square inch.
Researchers have been astonished by the size of the reptile, which exceeded even that of another pliosaur, called The Monster, which was found at the same site a year earlier.
Predator X is thought to have been at least 50 feet long, perhaps more, and measurements of its bulk suggest that it would have weighed in at 45 tonnes.
Its discovery was announced yesterday in Oslo by Jørn Hurum, of the University of Oslo, who led the expedition to dig up the remains. At least 20,000 fragments have been recovered including most of the jaws, which were 10 feet long. Dr Hurum said: “It was the most ferocious hunter ever. It’s like a turbo-charged predator. This is a very, very large carnivore.”
He added that Predator X was smaller than the biggest marine reptile yet known, a 75ft ichthyosaur from 210 million years ago, and was about the same length as the largest fossil shark to have been identified by palaeontologists. Predator X, however, was armed with much bigger teeth and, with its ability to close in at enormous speed, would have been much faster and deadlier than either of them.
Dr Hurum believes that Predator X and The Monster are likely to represent the same species of pliosaur. “Its anatomy, physiology and hunting strategy all point to it being the ultimate predator — the most dangerous creature to patrol the Earth’s oceans.”
The turbo-charge feature of its hind flippers was identified in tests by John Long, of Vassar College, New York State, using a four-flippered robot called Madeline.
Researchers had been puzzled about why the marine predator should have needed four flippers when the front two were perfectly adequate for it to swim well.
A CT scan of a pliosaur skull held at the Natural History Museum in London has showed that the ancient marine predators had a brain the same shape and proportion as the great white shark, which is regarded as today’s “perfect killing machine
The most fearsome sea monster the world has ever seen has been found buried in the Arctic.
Dubbed "Predator X", the massive pliosaur was fifty feet long and weighed 45 tons.
It had massive jaws with a bite force of 33,000 pounds - ten times the force of any animal alive today, including the Great White Shark.
Every tooth in its massive jaw was a foot long and Predator X clamped its victims with four times the force of T-Rex.
Predator X, which patrolled the oceans 147 millions years ago, was found buried in the remote Arctic near Svalbard by a team of scientists led by Dr Jorn Hurum of the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo.
They found another headline-making pliosaur - dubbed The Monster - two years ago and they were just leaving when when they spotted some more bones.
They marked the spot with a GPS reading and returned a year later to find the head of an even bigger sea giant - Predator X.
After a two week dig they found the skull of the buried in the frozen ground.
Its size and body and hunting skills all point to it being the most dangerous predator ever to patrol the world's oceans.
The bone linking its skull to its back is six inches in diameter making its skull twice the size of a T-Rex dinosaur.
The team also found 20,000 bone fragments which are being glued together to reconstruct the monster at the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo.
Predator X had four flippers to propel its massive body through the water.
Scientists used a flippered robot and did tests in a wind tunnel to see how it swam, calculating it would only need two flippers.
But they believe it used two flippers for cruising but all four when it wanted to surge fast through the water to pounce on its prey making it the deadliest hunter.
Another team used an industrial scanner to analyse its brain. It was found to have a long thin brain similar to a Great White shark.
The find has been dubbed the most significant Jurassic discovery in the Arctic.
Large pliosaurs were big and powerful enough to pick up a small car in its jaws and bite it in half.
The Arctic island chain of Scvalbard is known as a "treasure trove" of Jurassic creatures with at least 40 species already discovered.
Pliosaurs were a short-necked form of plesiosaur, a group of extinct reptiles that lived in the world's oceans during the age of the dinosaurs.
Around 150 million years ago Svalbard wasn't so close to the North Pole and had a warmer climate.
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic and known as "Predator X" had a bite that would make T-Rex look feeble, scientists said Monday.
The 50 ft (15 meter) long Jurassic era marine reptile had a crushing 33,000 lbs (15 tonnes) per square inch bite force, the Natural History Museum of Oslo University said of the new find on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
"With a skull that's more than 10 feet long you'd expect the bite to be powerful but this is off the scale," said Joern Hurum, an associate professor of vertebrate paleontology at the museum who led the international excavation in 2008.
"It's much more powerful than T-Rex," he said of the pliosaur reptile that would have been a top marine predator. Tyrannosaurus Rex was a top land carnivore among dinosaurs.
The scientists reconstructed the predator's head and estimated the force by comparing it with the similarly-shaped jaws of alligators in a park in Florida.
"The calculation is one of the largest bite forces ever calculated for any creature," the Museum said of the bite, estimated with the help of evolutionary biologist Greg Erickson from Florida State University.
Predator X's bite was more than 10 times more powerful than any modern animal and four times the bite of a T-Rex, it said of the fossil, reckoned at 147 million years old. Alligators, crocodiles and sharks all now have fearsome bites.
The teeth of the pliosaur, belonging to a new species, were a foot (30 cms) long. The scientists reconstructed the reptile from a partial skull and 20,000 fragments of skeleton.
The pliosaur, estimated to have weighed 45 tonnes, was similar to but had more massive bones than another fossil sea monster found on Svalbard in 2007, also estimated at 50 feet long and the largest pliosaur to date.
"It's not complete enough to say it's really bigger than 15 meters," Hurum said of the new fossil.
Hurum had said of the first fossil pliosaur that it was big enough to chomp on a small car. He said the bite estimates for the latest fossil forced a rethink.
"This one is more like it could crush a Hummer," he said. referring to General Motors' large sport utility vehicle.
Among other findings were that the pliosaur had a small thin brain shaped like that of a great white shark, according to scans by Patrick Druckenmiller of the University of Alaska.
Pliosaurs preyed upon squid-like animals, fish, and other marine reptiles. Predator X had four huge flippers to propel itself along, perhaps using just two at cruising speeds and the others for a burst of speed.
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