A 10-meter long full skeleton of a "sea dragon" was found in England

In February 2021, during the drainage of the reservoir inin the English county of Rutland, employee Joe Davis found something strange in the mud. At first he thought it was just a bunch of stones, but then he saw something in the ground that looked like a jaw. He immediately called the county council and announced that he had found dinosaur bones. Paleontologists came to the place of discovery and began to study the found remains. As it was found out, they did not belong to a dinosaur, but to an ichthyosaur - an ancient creature that looked very much like a dolphin. These monsters could grow up to 25 meters in length and lived on our planet from 250 to 90 million years ago. Scientists have previously found their bones in the UK, but the found individual turned out to be unique - researchers have not yet seen such a large and complete skeleton.

Man against the background of the remains of the ichthyosaurus Temnodontosaurus trigonodon

Features of the British ichthyosaur

About one of the most amazing paleontologicalfinds in the UK told BBC News. According to the calculations of researchers, the found individual died about 180 million years ago, and its body length reached 10 meters. Considering that these reptiles grew in length from 1 to 21 meters, the found individual, although not a giant, was a very large representative of its kind. According to the remains, the specimen had very large eyes with a diameter of about 20 centimeters. Another amazing feature of this creation was the presence of a large number of conical teeth.

Excavation of the remains of an ichthyosaurus

According to scientists, they are dealing with an ichthyosaur.species Temnodontosaurus trigonodon. It is believed that at the beginning of the Jurassic period, these creatures for a short time became one of the most formidable marine predators, but very quickly lost their status. They became extinct shortly thereafter - the likelihood is high that this happened after the appearance of the larger and bloodthirsty pliosaurs. It is believed that the habitat of representatives of the species Temnodontosaurus trigonodon was limited to the territory of what is now Western Europe, which includes Great Britain, France, Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium. The remains of these animals were first found in 1843, in Germany.

See also: Ichthyosaurus crushed shells of molluscs with round teeth

The remains of ichthyosaurs in the UK

According to Dean Lomax, wholed a group of paleontologists, the remains of ichthyosaurs have been found in the UK for over 200 years. Despite the large number of finds, the remains from Rutland County are unique - this is the largest skeleton, moreover, the most complete.

This is truly an unprecedented discovery and one of the greatest finds in British paleontological history, the researcher concluded.

At the moment, the remains of the ichthyosaurus are inthe county of Shropshire, which is located two hundred kilometers from Rutland. To avoid damage, the head of the ichthyosaur was covered with plaster. Researchers will have to carefully remove the bones and then carefully examine them. It is possible that in the course of scientific work they will learn new details about the life of ichthyosaurs - the skeleton is the most complete, therefore it may contain previously unexplored bones. After examination, the ichthyosaur skeleton is planned to be returned to Rutland for tourists to see.

Ichthyosaurus as seen by the artist

It is important to note that the chances of finding the remainsEven the inhabitants of Russia have ichthyosaurs. On the territory of our country, in different years, skeletons of ichthyosaurs of the species Grendelius, Undorosaurus and so on were found. The latter got its name in honor of its location in the village of Undor, which is located in the Ulyanovsk region. In 2016, the remains of an ichthyosaur were found in the Akushinsky district of the Republic of Dagestan, and in July 2021, the complete skeleton of an ancient monster was found in the village of Sinegorye, Kirov region.

Video about the excavation of ichthyosaurus

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A case worthy of special attention isoccurred in 2020 near Vladivostok. Then, on the shore of the island, a Russian boy named Dima Sirenko found the bones of an ichthyosaurus, which had been firmly stuck in the stones for many centuries. I talked about this in a separate article. In the same place, I noted that the complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur has not yet been found. But now this information can be considered irrelevant - there is a complete skeleton, and it was found in Rutland.