ago. it was discovered in the nature of serve in leicestershire. last february, on a bank of mud in a midlands reservoir, joe davis made an extraordinary discovery. we were relandscaping some islands on the rutland water nature reserve there to improve it for bird habitats. and i looked down, ijust saw this series of ridges in the mud and thought, that looks different, there s something there that s different. and it had organic features almost where it connects onto the rib. so, yeah, that s when we thought we need to call somebody and find out. a team of experts was quickly dispatched. joe hadn t found a dinosaur, but it was an ichthyosaur a monstrous, air breathing sea reptile, also known as a sea dragon, that swam about 180 million years ago. back then, rutland and most of the midlands was under water, covered by a warm, shallow sea. what makes this particular sea dragon so special is its size and condition.
and i looked down, ijust saw this series of ridges in the mud and thought, that looks different, there s something there that s different. and it had organic features almost where it connects onto the rib. so, yeah, that s when we thought we need to call somebody and find out. a team of experts was quickly dispatched. joe hadn t found a dinosaur, but it was an ichthyosaur a monstrous, air breathing sea reptile, also known as a sea dragon, that swam about 180 million years ago. back then, rutland and most of the midlands was under water, covered by a warm, shallow sea. what makes this particular sea dragon so special is its size and condition. this is a backbone, so it s part of the spine, and this is one of more than 150 individual vertebrae in this entire skeleton. so, this individual is not only the most complete ichthyosaur skeleton ever found, the biggest one ever
that lived 250 million years ago. it was discovered poking through the mud at rutland water nature reserve in leceistershire. jonah fisher has more. last february, on a bank of mud in a midlands reservoir, joe davis made an extraordinary discovery. we were re landscaping some islands on the rutland water nature reserve there to improve it for bird habitats. and i looked down, ijust saw this series of ridges in the mud and thought, that looks different, there s something there that s different. and it had organic features almost where it connects onto the rib. so, yeah, that s when we thought we need to call somebody and find out. a team of experts was quickly dispatched. joe hadn t found a dinosaur, but it was an ichthyosaur a monstrous, air breathing sea reptile, also known as a sea dragon, that swam about 180 million years ago. back then, rutland and most of the midlands was under water,
joe hadn t found a dinosaur, but it was an ichthyosaur a monstrous, air breathing sea reptile, also known as a sea dragon, that swam about 180 million years ago. back then, rutland and most of the midlands was under water, covered by a warm, shallow sea. what makes this particular sea dragon so special is its size and condition. this is a backbone, so it s part of the spine, and this is one of more than 150 individual vertebrae in this entire skeleton. so, this individual is not only the most complete ichthyosaur skeleton ever found, the biggest one ever found here in the uk, incredible at ten metres long. but it s actually the biggest prehistoric reptile skeleton ever found here as well, the most complete skeleton. 0k. the huge ichthyosaur has now been removed from the reservoir bed. the skull block on its own
predator, rather like a huge prehistoric dolphin, that lived 250 million years ago. it was discovered poking through the mud at rutland water nature reserve in leceistershire. jonah fisher has more. last february, on a bank of mud in a midlands reservoir, joe davis made an extraordinary discovery. we were relandscaping some islands on the rutland water nature reserve there to improve it for bird habitats. and i looked down, ijust saw this series of ridges in the mud and thought, that looks different, there s something there that s different. and it had organic features almost where it connects onto the rib. so, yeah, that s when we thought we need to call somebody and find out. a team of experts was quickly dispatched. joe hadn t found a dinosaur, but it was an ichthyosaur a monstrous, air breathing sea reptile, also known as a sea dragon, that swam about 180 million years ago.