The big fish that went away ...Deep-sea anglers, sit back in your deck chairs, close your eyes, and imagine fighting to land one of the monstrous fish that cruised the seas off South Carolina about 26 million years ago. Fossils found near Charleston suggest that adult members of Xiphiorhynchus rotundus, an extinct species of billfish billfish Any of several long-jawed fishes, especially those in the family Istiophoridae, including marlins, spearfishes, and sailfishes. The name is also applied to the gar, needlefish, and sauries (family Scomberesocidae), as well as to the swordfish (family Xiphiidae). related to today's swordfish and marlin, would easily exceed the lengths documented for world-record specimens of those oftsought fish. For a long time, X. rotundus was known only from a fossilized fos·sil·ize v. fos·sil·ized, fos·sil·iz·ing, fos·sil·iz·es v.tr. 1. To convert into a fossil. 2. To make outmoded or inflexible with time; antiquate. v.intr. portion of its distinctive upper bill, says Harry Fierstine of California Polytechnic State University This article is about the university in San Luis Obispo, California. For Cal Poly Pomona, see California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. California Polytechnic State University, commonly called Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo (săn l  `ĭs ōbĭs`pō), city (1990 pop. 41,958), seat of San Luis Obispo co., S Calif., near San Luis Obispo Bay; inc. 1856. . Now, paleontologists have unearthed Unearthed is the name of a Triple J project to find and "dig up" (hence the name) hidden talent in regional Australia. Unearthed has had three incarnations - they first visited each region of Australia where Triple J had a transmitter - 41 regions in all. a few of the species' vertebrae Vertebrae Bones in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions of the body that make up the vertebral column. Vertebrae have a central foramen (hole), and their superposition makes up the vertebral canal that encloses the spinal cord. , which measure up to 14.7 centimeters long and 10.9 cm in diameter. By comparing the X. rotundus dimensions with those of vertebrae from a closely related, extinct European species, Fierstine estimates that the largest of the South Carolina specimens was at least 5.1 meters long--comparable in length to a big alligator. Because the number of vertebrae in ancient billfish species ranged from 24 to 26, X. rotundus could have been even longer. In any case, it's the longest billfish in the fossil record. One of today's largest billfish is the black marlin, notes Glenda Kelley, a biologist with the International Game Fish Association in Dania Beach, Fla. The organization's rod-and-reel record for that species-a 4.4-m-long, 708-kilogram whopper-was hauled onboard a boat after an epic battle lasting 1 hour and 45 minutes off the coast of Peru in August 1953.--S.P. |
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