Fossil of Extinct 'Sea Dragon' Hailed as the Largest Ever Found in the UK

An awe-inspiring artifact of an extinct sea dragon unearthed in work by an estuarine preservationist, has been praised as the biggest and most accomplish fossil record of its kind ever encountered in Britain.

The specimen, described as an ichthyosaur, is an old reptilian creature that roamed in Earth's past waters while dinosaurs roamed on terrestrial, was discovered peeking out of the dirt, and specialists claim it is nearly finished from top to tail.

The Discovery of Largest Extinct Sea Dragon

Ichthyosaurs, which imitate contemporary dolphins and vary in diameter between 1 meter to further than 25 meters, originally emerged around 250 million years old and perished out approximately 160 million decades previously.

Native researchers had previously discovered two separate, incomplete ichthyosaur bones in the very same swamp region, and discovering additional evidence seemed entirely anticipated, but the enormity of the latest specimen which dwarfs its explorers was nonetheless a major stunner.

The investigators also gathered specimens of adjacent remains, such as squid-like ammonites and belemnites, in order to properly comprehend the ecosystem in which the ichthyosaur lived for centuries, as well as to identify the species to around 182 million years old.

Despite rising bird feces and bad climate, the crew of paleontologists, environmentalists, and enthusiasts managed to securely dig and collect the 10-meter-long relic and its whole spine of more than 150 unique vertebrae.

"We feared the specimen's tail was already damaged or dispersed by heavy equipment since the estuary was dug up some decade ago," says scientist named Nigel Larkin in a previous article about the discovery.

Even before bones were extracted, the researchers obtained a 3D image of the completely accessible sample.

The strategic planning to seek for financing for the following step of restoration, which will involve cleaning and preparing the specimen, with the intention that the creature's bones will be deposited on prominent exhibition near where it was discovered.

Largest Ever Fossil Found in the UK

paleontologist Mark Evans of the College of Leicester explained that, "If our diagnosis of the ichthyosaur as Temnodontosaurus trigonodon is right, this should reveal fresh insights on the subspecies' distribution pattern, as it hasn't been verified from the UK previously."

The termite mounds were uncovered over three weeks in a careful process that required a lot of cement and hardwood crutches to preserve the massive yet vulnerable example as it was taken from its murky grave.

"Among the hundreds of ichthyosaurs identified in Britain, none of these are as huge as this species, and few instances of this genera have been recovered in the UK that are this intact," Larkin said in a series of posts.

The particulate rock formations that contained the Rutland Sea Dragon were collected mostly during the beginning of Jurassic era, which is around 180 million years old, according to the investigators.

The discovery of the skeletal system was only the first stage; obtaining the massive remnants was a difficult task: the skull solely measured just under a tonne once enveloped in masonry.

"The Rutland Ichthyosaur, or Rutland Sea Dragon, is the largest entire ichthyosaur ever unearthed in Britain in over 200 years of academic gathering," explains paleontologist Dean Lomax, who supervised the dig.