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“It’s great from a Queensland point of view, there is such a rich fossil record here from that time period, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs in particular,” he said.
“So this shows not only how rich Queensland is as a state when it comes to these kinds of fossils, but also what the Queensland Museum is doing for field research to take advantage of new technologies.”
Mosasaurs were one of the apex predators of the ancient seas, even eating the great sharks that existed at the time.
Dr Knutsen said the museum has invested in CT scanning capabilities to obtain accurate images of fossils that would otherwise be difficult to remove from the surrounding rock, examples of which will be featured in the exhibit.
Among the specimens on display are real fossils and replicas from the museum’s collection, including a huge jaw of a Kronosaurus discovered in the Queensland outback, which was part of the great Australian Inland Sea more than 100 million years ago.
The exhibit also features a 13-meter-long Elasmosaurus, a type of plesiosaur from North America, as well as a 9-meter mosasaur from New Zealand.
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The specimens vary in age from 350 million years ago, through the end of the Cretaceous period to 65 million years ago.
Dr Knutsen conceived the exhibition as a window into a previous world very different from ours.
“It’s a story about how things change over time – the oceans today are dominated by large fish, sharks and marine mammals, whereas back then you had similar roles played by these large reptiles,” he said.
“Instead of whales and seals there were ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, they swam around feeding on fish and squid, and then there were large predators like Kronosaurus that fed on ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.”
The exhibit also includes digital recreations of the animals and interactive displays.
It was developed in collaboration with the Australian National Maritime Museum, with the support of BHP through its Project DIG partnership with the Queensland Museum.
Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Ocean Predators opens at the Queensland Museum on Friday and will run until May next year.
Stuart Layt is responsible for health, science and technology for the Brisbane Times. He was previously the Queensland political reporter for AAP.
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