{"id":523580,"date":"2018-09-19T11:39:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=d8d8fd03c021aa394bf17da5f21f10a0"},"modified":"2018-09-19T11:39:04","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:39:04","slug":"oldest-known-aquatic-reptiles-probably-spent-time-on-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=523580","title":{"rendered":"Oldest-known aquatic reptiles probably spent time on land"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The oldest known aquatic reptiles, the mesosaurs, probably spent part of their life on land, reveals a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. The fossilized bones of adult Mesosaurus share similarities with land-dwelling animals, which\u2014coupled with the relative scarcity of land-weathered fossilized remains of large specimens\u2014suggests that older mesosaurs were semi-aquatic, whereas juveniles spent most of their time in the water. This new research emphasizes the importance of thoroughly analyzing fossilized remains from across all stages of a reptile&#8217;s life to get a full appreciation of its lifestyle and behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The oldest known aquatic reptiles, the mesosaurs, probably spent part of their life on land, reveals a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. The fossilized bones of adult Mesosaurus share similarities with land-dwelling animals, which&mdash;coupled with the relative scarcity of land-weathered fossilized remains of large specimens&mdash;suggests that older mesosaurs were semi-aquatic, whereas juveniles spent most of their time in the water. This new research emphasizes the importance of thoroughly analyzing fossilized remains from across all stages of a reptile&#8217;s life to get a full appreciation of its lifestyle and behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=523580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523581,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523580\/revisions\/523581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=523580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=523580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=523580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}