It is the largest ichthyosaur ever found in Britain.
The fossil of a large ten-meter ichthyosaur, known as a ‘ sea dragon ‘, has been discovered in the Rutland Water nature reserve (Great Britain). It is the largest and most complete skeleton of its kind found to date in the British countryside.
The ichthyosaur ( Temnodontosaurus trigonodon ) was discovered by Joe Davis, conservation team leader at Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, during routine drainage of a lagoon island for relandscaping in Rutland Water in February 2021. “The find has been absolutely amazing.” fascinating and a real highlight of my career. It’s great to learn so much from the discovery and to think that this amazing creature was once swimming in the seas above us,” Davis said in a statement.
The ichthyosaur is approximately 180 million years old and, with a skeleton measuring around 10 meters long and a skull weighing around a tonne, it is the most complete large ichthyosaur ever found in Britain.
Ichthyosaurs first appeared about 250 million years ago and became extinct 90 million years ago. They were an extraordinary group of marine reptiles ranging in size from 1 to over 25 meters long, resembling dolphins in general body shape.
The fragile remains of the huge skeleton were painstakingly excavated in August and September 2021 by a team of expert paleontologists led by Dean Lomax, a world expert on ichthyosaurs, and curator paleontologist Nigel Larkin.
