monster&#039 | Common News Update

Some 200 million years ago in what is now Warwickshire, a dolphin-like reptile died and sank to the bottom of the sea. The creature's burial preserved its skull in stunning detail - enabling scientists to digitally reconstruct it.The fossil, unveiled in the journal PeerJ, gives a unique insight into the life of an ichthyosaur. The ferocious creature would have fed upon fish, squid and likely others of its kind. Its bones were found in a farmer's field more than 60 years ago, but their significance has only just come to light. Remarkably, the skull is three-dimensionally preserved and contains bones that are rarely exposed. "It's taken more than half a century for this ichthyosaur to be studied and described, but it has been worth...

Scientists have identified an extraordinary specimen of fossilized blubber from a ‘fish-lizard’ that lived 180 million years ago, according to a new report in the journal Nature. The blubber, a layer of fat beneath the skin of modern marine mammals that helps them preserve heat, indicates that the ancient 'sea monster' was warm-blooded, an unusual quality in a reptile, according to the report's authors. The Jurassic-era sea creature, called an ichthyosaur, appears to have shared qualities of both a mammal and a reptile, according to Johan Lindgren, a senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden. "They looked kind of similar to dolphins, but the tail fin, it was vertical rather than horizontal,” Lindgren told ABC News. “They were reptiles," he said, while "dolphi...

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Incredible 'sea monster' skull revealed in 3D

Amazing fossil of 180-million-year-old 'sea monster' preserved its blubber and skin