Complete ichthyosaur fossil found in the UK
Workers draining a reservoir during maintenance work in Rutland, a county in the UK, discovered giant vertebrae bones from a 180-million-year-old dinosaur fossil.
A spectacular discovery
Paleontologists unearthed this huge fossil in the East Midlands, England. It is the biggest and best preserved fossil of an ichthyosaur ever found in Britain.
A reservoir reveals its secrets
In February 2021, the Anglian Water utility planned to landscape the banks of the reservoir in the Rutland Water Nature Reserve. Water was drained, and a spit of land emerged.
Extinct for millions of years
While taking a closer look at the drained lagoon with a colleague, conservation team leader Joe Davis came across round objects sticking out of the mud. His colleague thought they were just old clay pipes, but Davis had a hunch.
Painstaking work
Dean Lomax, a paleontologist and passionate ichthyosaur expert (third from right) and his team began to dig. Piece by piece, they uncovered one bone after another in the course of August, eventually uncovering the spectacular specimen.
More than 10 meters long
It soon become clear that the fossil was an ichthyosaur. A number of skeletons of these marine animals have been found in Britain. The first was found in 1811 by 12-year-old Mary Anning and her brother. The Rutland specimen is particularly well preserved.
An almost complete specimen
The paleontologists continued their painstaking excavation. The photo shows the tail end of the animal, amazingly well preserved for its age. Ichthyosaurs lived about 90 to 250 million years ago. Paleontologists estimate the age of this specimen at about 180 million years.
Head to tail
The true extent of this ichthyosaur emerged bit by bit. The body of the marine animal is about 10 meters long, about the length of a blue whale.
Impressive head
Other marine animals probably had great respect for the ichthyosaur. The massive skull of the fossil alone weighs about a ton. The specimen may look like a flattened saltwater crocodile but the predator was likely much more elegant when it was roaming the seas.
Keep your distance
The creature may seem to be smiling in the above image, but ichthyosaurs were predators. Adult animals preyed on vertebrates including turtles and birds, and probably also on smaller ichthyosaurs. Smaller ichthyosaurs also ate shellfish, which paleontologists learned from analyzing the stomach contents of fossils.