Jonathan Hanson with the ichthyosaur skeleton at the School of Earth Sciences
A new species of British ichthyosaur has been identified using skeletal remains which have been on display at the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences for many years. Ichthyosaurs lived during the age of the dinosaurs but were ocean dwelling reptiles that resembled dolphins or sharks. They were fierce predators, some growing up to 15 metres long. The newly identified species lived around 200 million years ago in the early Jurassic period, a time when the UK was a small series of islands. The six year study, led by the University of Manchester, and published today in Papers in Palaeontology , set out to search for British examples of ichthyosaurs and researchers were able to identify features in the skull and fins of fossilised remains that distinguished the new species from others. The research was carried out by Dean Lomax (Honorary Scientist at The University of Manchester) and Professor Judy Massare (Brockport College, New York). Specimen '25300' (the complete skeletal remains of the large ichthyosaurus found in Walton, Somerset) was donated to the University of Bristol around 80 years ago by the City Museum.
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