A Naturalist Stumbles on Britain’s Largest Ichthyosaur Skeleton


At the bottom of a lagoon in a UK nature reserve lies a secret that has been dormant for thousands of years, hidden by mud, water and ice.

Fossilized remains have only recently been found, a throwback to when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and huge marine reptiles colloquially called “sea dragons” plundered the oceans.

This wasn’t just any ancient find: the sea creature’s remains were ichthyosaur, involved in a currently completed excavation project, were the largest ever discovered of this type in England. announced on Monday. They also said it was one of the largest and most complete skeletons of an ichthyosaur (pronounced IK-thee-uh-sor) found anywhere in the world.

The skeleton is said to date from the Jurassic Period, about 180 million years ago, and measured about 10 meters (more than 30 feet). If the lagoon had not been dried as part of the landscape project, it would never have come to light.

The fossil was found in 2021. Rutland Water Nature Reserve A landlocked reservoir in England’s East Midlands, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of London, known for attracting waterfowl and other birds.

Joe Davis, a conservation team leader at the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, said on Monday that he first encountered the fossil last February when he and a colleague were making their way through the mud on their mudflats.

“We kind of looked and scratched our heads,” Mr Davis said in an interview. “I realized it might be something from the dinosaur era. We could see these ridges and bumps. That’s when alarm bells began to ring.”

Mr. Davis, 48, took pictures of the fossil and contacted Rutland County Council, who associated it with a geology curator at the University of Leicester, who referred him to Dean R. Lomax, a paleontologist specializing in ichthyosaurs.

The head of the excavation project, Dr. “I immediately recognized them as ichthyosaur vertebrae,” Lomax said Monday. “She found it by accident.”

Ichthyosaurs, fish-shaped marine reptiles resembling whales and dolphins, first appeared about 250 million years ago. ammonites, a type of mollusk. They disappeared about 90 million years ago and overlapped with the dinosaurs, he said.

“He had these big eyes, big teeth,” he said. “A lot of people tend to go back to the old days and call them sea dragons.”

Dr. Lomax said he couldn’t tell from the photos whether it was a whole skeleton, for example, or just fragments, like many of those discovered in England over the centuries. He should have seen it himself.

About two weeks later, he said, he conducted a one-day mini-excavation of the nature reserve with four paleontologists.

A visiting scientist at the University of Manchester, 32-year-old Dr. “We stunned us all,” Lomax said.

However, conditions in the nature reserve were not suitable for a full-scale excavation. Dr. Lomax said that paleontologists covered the skeleton with plastic sheets and mud until they returned. According to Lomax, the lagoon was frozen and would eventually need to be filled with water to avoid disturbing its natural habitat.

“As an expert, I was dying to go out there and dig it up,” he said. “We also had a lot of migratory birds there. We had to wait for them to leave.”

In August, Dr. A team of experts, including Lomax, returned to the field for several weeks to excavate the skeleton, ran daily tests for the coronavirus, and signed non-disclosure agreements, saying they would keep the discovery a secret.

“The skull weighs over a ton,” said Mr Davis, who made the first discovery and said that his son’s skeleton is from the “Joe-rassic” era.

To protect the skeleton while being lifted off the ground, Mr. Davis and Dr. It was wrapped in plaster, which Lomax likened to plaster molding for broken bones. Dr. Lomax lay on the ground next to the excavated skeleton to show its size.

Mr Davis said he was lucky the skeleton was not damaged when the lagoon was first excavated 12 years ago.

“They must have been inches away when they first built the lagoon,” he said.

Stating that the participants of the project hope to exhibit the sample in the Rutland region, Dr. According to Lomax, it can take 18 to 24 months to preserve the skeleton and remove the rock from the bones. Skeletal remains of ichthyosaurs were more typically found along the river. Jura Beach “Southern England,” he said.

After the skeleton was lifted off the ground, Dr. It was trucked to the lab of project co-leader Nigel Larkin, which Lomax says is about a 2.5-hour drive from Rutland. The main body section was too large to fit inside a truck, so it was loaded onto a trailer – not as other drivers would have noticed. He was wrapped.

Dr. “It really scared people,” Lomax said.





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