Rutland Sea Dragon Discovered

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The county of Rutland was famous for being the home of The Rutles, now they gained further attention by the discovery of the largest fish lizard fossil yet. It is rather interesting that an ichthyosaurid was discovered when a reservoir in Rutland was built, this one was found when one was drained.

A thorough examination is expected to take possibly two years. (Rusty Swingset offered to send Dewey Lye and Cliff Swallows over from the Darwin Ranch, but local paleontologists declined.) No word if they contacted the nearby CMI's UK/Europe Leicester office for assistance.

Platypterigius kiprjanov by Dmitry Bogdanov at Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0), mostly modified at PhotoFunia

It seems critters that spent all of their time in the sea would be fish or perhaps mammals, but these have features found in other reptiles. Is that a peculiarity of the time of the dinosaurs?

There were other interesting things found as well. For one thing, it appears that another ichthyosaur was going to dine on the big specimen when the burial occurred and fossilization commenced. Believers in millions of years and universal common ancestor evolution will dream up some stories, but the most logical explanation is that these created creatures were suddenly buried in the Genesis Flood.

The largest and most complete fossil skeleton of a marine ichthyosaur has been unearthed at Rutland Water, UK. Ichthyosaurs are reptiles which looked a bit like large dolphins and are still colloquially called “sea dragons.” They are believed by secular geologists to have appeared c. 250 million years ago (mya) and to have become extinct 90 mya.

Joe Davis, Conservation Team Leader at Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust discovered the fossil in February 2021, when a reservoir was drained. The fossil is huge, measuring some 10 metres (33 ft) long and weighing over two tonnes. However, other fossil evidence suggests some species of ichthyosaur could reach 25 metres (83 ft) in length.

For the rest, click on "Biggest ichthyosaur ever found in the UK!" Also of interest is "Inside the belly of a beast", where a dinosaur was inside an ichthyosaur when fossilized. Although biblical creationists reject the Darwin years, the short animation below is interesting: