Ichthyosaur discovery sparks debate yet again on India’s Jurassic connect
- Arijit Bose
- Oct 27, 2017
- 2 min read
UnearthingIndia’sJurassicWorld With the fish lizard fossil discovery, India poised to realize its connect with the Jurassic world across continents sometime soon
Ichthyosaur fossil – courtesy DNA
India is back to talking the Jurassic era once again, not because a Steven Spielberg film is running in theatres near you but because an amazing discovery has opened the floodgates for further possibilities of finding links to dinosaurs that existed in that era. This is being called a first on Indian soil.
Top minds who have been behind the discovery say finding the Ichthyosaur or fish lizard throw light on the evolution and diversity of ichthyosaurs in the Indo-Madagascan region of what once was known as Gondwanaland and India’s biological connectivity with other continents.
The near complete Jurassic era fossil, looks like a mix of a dolphin and lizard. It lived during the twilight of dinosaurs which has been unearthed in Kutch, Gujarat.
The Ichthyosaurs were large reptiles living in the same time as dinosaurs. In the past several ichthyosaur fossils have been found in North America and Europe. In the Southern Hemisphere it has mostly been limited to South America and Australia. Scientists who are excited aboutthis development tell the media that the 5.5 metre-long skeleton is thought to belong to the Ophthalmosauridae family. The lizard fish lived between 165 and 90 million years ago, when Kutch was a sea.
Last not so confirmed reports of Ichthyosaurs came from Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu in 2016 but these were only fossils of teeth and part of the vertebra.
The 150-million-year-old marine reptile was unearthed by a team of local and German geologists.
The ichthyosaur existed during the Mesozoic Era upwards of 250 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed planet earth.
Traditionally Gujarat is known for the largest repository of dinosaur remains, and is colloquially dubbed India’s Jurassic Park.
In 2003, a National Geographic team discovered a dinosaur – a 30-foot-long, carnivorous, stocky animal with an unusual crested head – named “Rajasaurus Narmadensis”.
A large dinosaur egg hatchery was located in Balasinor, 90 km south of Ahmedabad. If scientists are to be believed this discovery could further strengthen possibility of a marine seaway between India and South America when the ancient continents were fused together millions of years ago.
Going by the scientific data ichthyosaurs of middle to late Triassic period, such as Grippia, Utatsusaurus and Cymbospondylus, tended to lack dorsal (back) fins and streamlined, hydrodynamic body shapes.
Early ichthyosaurs were fairly small, but there were exceptions.
The early to middle Jurassic period (about 200 to 175 million years ago) was the golden age of ichthyosaurs, witnessing important genera like Ichthyosaurus closely related to Stenopterygius
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