Fossils dating to about 250 million years ago unearthed on a Norway Arctic island are now providing insight into the rise of ichthyosaurs.
The researchers had thought any ichthyosaur living 250 million years ago would have been a primitive form, not far removed from its land-living forerunners. The fossils showed this one, which has not yet been given a scientific name, was quite advanced anatomically.
“The implications of this discovery are manifold, but most importantly indicate that the long-anticipated transitional ichthyosaur ancestor must have appeared much earlier than previously suspected,” Kear added. The site where the fossils were found is a classic Arctic landscape with high snow-capped mountains along the coast of a deep fjord. The fossils were exposed along a river channel fed by snow melt that cuts through rock layers that were once mud at the bottom of the sea.
Many ichthyosaurs looked like dolphins, except with vertical rather than horizontal tail flukes. Others resembled large whales. The biggest included Shastasaurus, at about 70 feet . They ate fish and squid. Fossils show ichthyosaurs giving live birth to their young.
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Oldest fossils of remarkable marine reptiles found in ArcticFossils dating to about 250 million years ago unearthed on a Norway Arctic island are now providing insight into the rise of ichthyosaurs.
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