Researchers in the United Kingdom have found a massive 180-million-year-old fossil remains of a species of ichthyosaur, commonly known as the ‘sea dragon’. The researchers describe it as one of the most important discoveries in the region as the fossil is the largest and most complete skeleton of its kind found in the UK. Ichthyosaurs resembled dolphins in body shape and became extinct about 90 million years ago, after making their first appearance 250 million years ago.
Discovered in a reservoir in Rutland County, the skeleton measures nearly 10 meters in length. Joe Davis, conservation team leader from Leicestershire, and the Rutland Wildlife Trust, which operates the nature reserve in partnership with owner Anglian Water, found the specimen in a number of related landscaping work. related to the withdrawal of water in the lagoon. For the first time he discovered parts of vertebrae in the mud. What followed was a large-scale excavation in August and September, Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Conservancy said during an excavation. statement.
Davis commented that the find was a “career highlight” for him, and went on to add that there was a feeling even thought the creature once swam in the sea.
ONE report CNN quoted Dean Lomax, an ichthyosaur expert and visiting scientist at the University of Manchester, as saying that “size and completeness together is what makes it truly special”. Lomax added that previous finds of ichthyosaurs in the UK were “never quite as complete and large as this”.
Saying the discovery is just “the tip of the iceberg,” Lomax said that there is still much to learn about the ichthyosaur once the rock fragments are removed, including the possibility that the reptile’s last meal was preserved or this reptile is pregnant. .
Paul Barrett, Research Achievement Researcher in the Department of Vertebrate Earth Sciences and Paleontological Anthropology at the Natural History Museum in London, told CNN it was “one of the few marine fossil discoveries most impressive from the UK that I can remember at least in the last 20 years. 30 years or so. ”
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