Morturneria lived during the Late Cretaceous, and was discovered in Antarctica. What’s really fascinating is that Morturneria was a filter feeding plesiosaur, using its mouth as a sieve to indulge in marine invertebrates. The filter feeding strategy may have evolved in order to avoid direct competition with its other marine reptiles. Morturneria was once thought to be a juvenile Aristonectes, but paleontologists saw differences in non-ontological characteristics in Morturneria, thus distinguished it from Aristonectes. Fun fact, Morturneria was originally named Turneria, but the name was already taken by a genus of ant.
