René Dopico had already walked by him a lot of times, when he finally saw him. In fact, he says that much of his childhood had been spent in that same cave that today attracts the attention of scientists, but that then he “went in to play and not to look.”
«Like this, until one day I sat on a stone and watched. “I told myself that it looked like an animal, and that’s where all this came from.”
At 60 years old, he never thought that this figure in the form of a skeleton embedded in the rock, which he now shows me with a flashlight, could be considered by some specialists as the paleontological discovery of the century in Cuba.
He had previously found ammonite fossils, which he showed as a curiosity, without knowing very well what they were, to the tourists who came to his farm, in the Viñales Valley.
“I thought it was a normal thing, but people started counting me, telling me how much time they had, and that’s how I learned,” he says.
Accustomed to the wonders of nature, in an area with rich biodiversity and fascinating geology, he had no idea that his new discovery was so important, until one of those occasional visitors published the photos on the Internet, and the commotion began.
Although the research has barely begun, there is no doubt of the enormous value of the discovery of what, apparently, was an ichthyosaur between three and four meters long, from the Lower Cretaceous period.
At least, that is what the first in situ studies suggest, in a cave known as the spring of the bull river.
The doctor in Geological Sciences Manuel Iturralde affirms that there is consensus on this matter, and that the unknown lies in the type of ichthyosaur it would be, one of the points towards which the work is currently focused.
Broadly speaking, he explains that these prehistoric reptiles were once very abundant. “They were distributed throughout the oceans and had a long life, from the Triassic (250 million years) to the Cretaceous (90 million).”
With a certain physical resemblance to the current dolphin, but with a longer beak and sharp teeth, Iturralde points out that they swam at high speed and could dive to great depths.
Everything indicates, furthermore, that they were carnivorous animals, that “they fed on everything that passed before them.”
WHAT MAKES THIS FIND SO VALUABLE?
“This is the first articulated skeleton of a large reptile found in Cuba,” says the renowned specialist.
Researcher Yasmani Ceballos, another member of the team carrying out the study, comments that, until now, incomplete skulls, some vertebrae (never more than five), and isolated bones of saurians from the Jurassic period had been found in our country. superior.
“In the case of the Upper Cretaceous, isolated bones and teeth had appeared, but nothing like this,” he adds.
The new discovery from Viñales, on the other hand, has a part of the skull, the almost complete spine, ribs, remains of other bones and fins. Hence he considers it “the most complete fossil remains of a reptile from the Cuban Mesozoic.”
But this is not the only novelty. Yasmani points out that the estimates made, based on the data collected so far, suggest that it could belong to the Lower Cretaceous (between 130 and 145 million years ago).
If confirmed, this would make this discovery even more valuable.
«Towards the end of the Jurassic and the beginning of the Cretaceous, most ichthyosaur genera practically disappeared from the fossil record.
«In the time interval in which we are considering their antiquity, there are almost no fossil remains of ichthyosaurs in the world. “Therefore, this is a paleontological discovery of national and international importance.” However, he warns that “it is not something definitive. “Much more research is needed to determine the age properly.”
What is a marine saurian doing in the mountains of Viñales? Recognized worldwide for its mogotes and its unique landscapes, the Viñales Valley did not always have the appearance that today makes it an important destination for tourism.
Millions of years ago, the area where it is located today was under water, so part of its rocks come from the bottom of what is known as “the early Caribbean.”
Ricardo Romero, main specialist of this National Geopark, located in the heart of the Sierra de los Órganos, explains that what we see today is the result of complex processes that have occurred over time.
“The entire calcareous belt, which is mountains and mogotes, was formed in an environment of deep and shallow waters,” he says, adding that in the rocks of this region of Western Cuba, which today no one would associate with the sea, That legacy of the evolution of the Earth and life on it has remained.
WHAT WOULD BE THE NEXT STEPS IN THE RESEARCH?
For the doctor in Geological Sciences Manuel Iturralde, «this, of course, opens a door to search for other specimens in the rocks of the same age, both in nearby areas and in other regions of the Sierra de los Órganos or Rosario. ».
However, the next steps would be focused on returning to the place to perform photogrammetry, which will allow extracting a 3D model of the fossil, and taking rock samples from the slab where the reptile appeared, in order to be able to specify the age of the ichthyosaur and try to identify which type it belonged to, details Lázaro William Viñola, a doctoral student who leads the research.
To this end, the team in charge of the study has established contact with other Cuban and foreign specialists, who have expressed their willingness to collaborate.
Taking into account the enormous importance of the discovery and the need to preserve it, the restriction of access to the place has also been coordinated with the management of the Viñales National Park.
This is also necessary because it is a cave that is collapsing, and that floods suddenly when it rains, clarifies Iturralde.
To show visitors, an explanatory poster was made with all the information available so far, including images of the interior of the cave and the reconstructions that scientists have made of the ichthyosaurs.
On the other hand, 3D graphic material will be prepared, allowing people to take a kind of virtual visit to the place, without having to go inside it.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERY OF THE CENTURY IN CUBA?
Although the question smacks of sensationalism and has the same feel as many of the fake news that have gone viral in the Internet era, specialists consider that it could be so.
Even though everything is a matter of perspective and that, to claim victory, there is still much to study, the new Viñales fossil has values that make it very relevant for Cuban paleontology.
Researcher Yasmani Ceballos, for example, acknowledges that there have been other surprising discoveries.
This is the case of a Jurassic dinosaur bone, found at the beginning of the 20th century, described in 1942 in Alfredo de la Torre’s degree thesis, or those of a prehistoric turtle, or the remains of a monkey, also found in a Pinar del Río cavern.
«But the fact that this fossil corresponds to the early Cretaceous period, and to the almost complete skeleton of a large marine reptile, gives it enormous relevance. Nothing like this had ever been found in Cuba,” says Yasmani.
Reluctant to sensationalism and comparisons, Manuel Iturralde, for his part, prefers to avoid certain clichés, which usually accompany this type of news, regarding whether it is the “greatest” or the “most relevant” or the “oldest” », instead of concentrating on what it really contributes to science.
What there is no doubt about, he says, is that it constitutes “an important find, a unique, different fossil, that tells a story that none of those that had been found had the capacity to tell, because it is very complete.”
This even allows us to develop theories about how this ichthyosaur could have survived to the present day, transforming from a living animal into a petrified animal on the wall of the dark interior of a cave in Pinar del Río.
Discovered by pure chance, as has happened so many times, the marine saurian fossil adds to the values of Cuba’s first Geopark, enlarging the mystique of a region that has captivated poets, painters and scientists alike.
With a mixture of all this, adopting Martí’s thought that there is a lot of strength in science, Iturralde defines it as a “capsule of history and time, which gives us a story of life and death in the past.”
Source: Granma
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