![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/800_image4.xiphodracongoldencapensiscdrdeanlomax.jpg\" "\\"Sword-snouted")
Large, sword-like snout of the marine creature. The University of Manchester<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
Skull with huge eye socket<\/p>\n
Unearthed in 2001 from the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada, soon acquired the skeleton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although it joined the museum\u2019s extensive ichthyosaur<\/a> collection, it remained unstudied until this recent research.<\/p>\n Dr. Lomax first encountered the skeleton in 2016 and immediately recognized the fossil as something \u201cunusual.\u201d<\/p>\n Extensive analysis revealed this marine predator was about three metres long (roughly 9 feet) in real life. \u00a0<\/p>\n The specimen\u2019s skull is preserved, revealing its huge eye socket and elongated, sword-like snout.<\/p>\n It exhibits unique features, including a strange and unique bone around the nostril (a lacrimal) with prong-like bony structures \u2014 something never before observed in any ichthyosaur.<\/p>\n The reptile would have dined on fish and squid. Traces of what may be its last meal were preserved.<\/p>\n Moreover, the skeleton shows evidence of a dangerous life in the ancient seas of Britain.\u00a0<\/p>\n The malformed limb bones and teeth suggest the aquatic animal suffered from serious injury or disease during its lifetime.<\/p>\n \u201cThe skull appears to have been bitten by a large predator \u2013 likely another much larger species of ichthyosaur- giving us a cause of death for this individual. Life in the Mesozoic oceans was a dangerous prospect,\u201d said Dr Erin Maxwell, a co-author from the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart.\u00a0<\/p>\n Filling the evolutionary gap <\/p>\n The highly adapted ichthyosaurs<\/a> inhabited the ancient oceans throughout the Mesozoic Era (250 to 90 million years ago). Thousands of marine reptile<\/a> fossils have been unearthed from the UK\u2019s Jurassic Coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n The discovery of Xiphodracon is important as it is the first new genus of an Early Jurassic ichthyosaur described from the coast in over 100 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n The new specimen is a vital piece of evidence as ichthyosaurs from the Pliensbachian period (193\u2013184 million years ago) are incredibly rare.\u00a0<\/p>\n The researchers describe it as the \u201cworld\u2019s most complete prehistoric reptile from the Pliensbachian period.\u201d<\/p>\n This valuable discovery could help understand a less known phase in ichthyosaur evolution, defined by major faunal turnover and extinction events.<\/p>\n