'Sea Monsters' actually about forensic archaeology

Not all science is truth, and that’s the belief of the science community itself rather than the thought of skeptics. Some science is the formulation of theory, put forth for confirmation or refinement. Archaeological information about pre-historic life creates a puzzle for archaeologists and biologists to piece together, and the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center movie “Sea Monsters” is actually more about forensic archaeology than the pre-historic fish and reptiles.

At one time places such as Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas were covered with water. Whether that was due to the Biblical 40-day flood or to a former ocean which was erased when two tectonic plates met to create the Rocky Mountains is irrelevant; what is important is that there are fossils in the American Midwest and elsewhere which prove the existence of marine life. “Sea Monsters” combines archaeological finds with the projected activities of the creatures who now exist in fossil form.

The star of “Sea Monsters” is Dolly, derived from the name dolichorhynchops. The discovery in Kansas of a dolichorhynchops fossil with a shark’s tooth embedded in its flipper leads to speculation of what Dolly’s life was actually like 80 million years ago.

Archaeological finds “down under” noted a large collection of juveniles, indicating that mothers headed to the safety of the shallows to give birth. Dolly’s journey begins in the shallows with the birth of her twin brother and then her own birth.

The birth scene creates numerous questions. While Dolly and her brother are portrayed as being born out of their mother, which would indicate the dolichorhynchops to be a marine mammal, the species was defined as a reptile. That would equate to hatching of eggs rather than live birth. And while some eggs are likely food for predators before they hatch, most reptiles give birth to more than two offspring at a time. There’s obviously more work for the scientists to perform with regard to the life of a dolichorhynchops.

Dolly and her brother enjoy the safety of the shallows until their food takes a journey into the open sea. That forces Dolly and her family into the dangerous sea of the late Cretaceous era. Dolly’s mother and brother do not survive the year, and Dolly herself is the victim of a non-fatal shark attack which damages her fin. The fin later healed, but the shark’s tooth remained.

Sometimes the fossil of another animal is found inside a predator who choked to death on his food or was himself fatally injured in a fight. This is portrayed in the archaeological portion of the film and parlayed into species of relative predators and prey.

Eventually, the scenario goes, Dolly returns to the shallows, gives birth herself, and lives to an appropriate old age before dying of natural causes, allowing her fossil to end up in a Kansas campground rather than another animal’s digestive system. The word “scenario” is appropriate, since nobody really knows what happened 80 million years ago. The best guesses of the archaeological and paleontological communities become an adventure in the Kansas sea.

The title is somewhat misleading, and the information should not be taken at face value since it is speculation. The real science is the forensic archaeology, not the marine biology. What happened in Kansas 80 million years ago is unknown, but what has happened during fossil digs of the past century creates quite a story.