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The first side-necked turtle ever to be found in the U.K. has been discovered by an amateur fossil collector and paleontologists at the University of Portsmouth.
As detailed in a new study recently published in the online journal PLOS ONE, ichthyosaurs are extinct medium to large-sized marine predators that thrived during the Age of Dinosaurs. They first appeared in the Early Triassic roughly 250 million years ago and prowled the primeval oceans until the Late Cretaceous approximately 90 million years ago. This ichthyosaur has several differences that makes it unique enough to be its own genus and species, explained paleontologist and co-author Megan L. Jacobs, a Baylor University doctoral candidate in geosciences. New Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs in the United Kingdom are extremely rare, as these creatures have been studied for 200 years. We knew it was new almost instantly, but it took about a year to make thorough comparisons with all other Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs to make certain our instincts were correct. It was very exciting to not be able to find a match.
Contact: Terry Goodrich, Baylor University Media and Public Relations, 254-644-4155
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WACO, Texas (Dec. 9, 2020) – A mysterious small marine reptile dating from 150 million years ago has been identified as a new species that may have been capable of diving very deeply. The well-preserved specimen was found in a Late Jurassic deep marine deposit along the English Channel coastline in Dorset, England.
The aquatic reptile has been determined to be part of the group known as ichthyosaurs, which were streamlined marine predators from the Late Jurassic period, according to paleontologist
Megan L. Jacobs, a Baylor University doctoral candidate in geosciences. She is co-author of a