Dinosaurs & Prehistory - Prehistoric marine predators - Ichthyosaurus - Jurassic - Mary Anning
What was Ichthyosaurus actually?
Correct!
Ichthyosaurus looked similar to a fish or dolphin with its streamlined body, but was an extinct marine reptile. Ichthyosaurs were not dinosaurs: they formed a separate group of reptiles whose ancestors returned to the sea more than 250 million years ago. The similarity to fish and today's dolphins arose through convergent evolution. Animals with very different ancestry developed similar, fast body shapes in open water. Ichthyosaurs were so adapted to life in the sea that they did not need to return to land to lay their eggs. Fossils show that they gave birth to live young in water. Early Ichthyosaurus finds were also made famous by Mary Anning and the Lyme Regis fossils.
Ichthyosaurus was neither a fish nor a dinosaur, but an extinct marine reptile with a highly streamlined body.
