‘Fish lizard’ fossil found in India
INDIAN scientists have identified a prehistoric marine reptile fossil discovered in a western desert region known as the subcontinent’s Jurassic Park.
The 150-million-year-old marine reptile known as “ichthyosaur” is the first of its kind found in India and was unearthed by a team of Indian and German geologists.
The 5.5m specimen was uncovered in the Kutch desert in Gujarat in January last year, but scientists took more than a year to identify the rare fossil.
The ichthyosaur – a combination of two Greek words meaning fish and lizard – existed during the Mesozoic Era upwards of 250 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
“The fossil was studied for more than a year and it turned out to be an ichthyosaur, a kind of marine reptile which could have resembled the presentday dolphins,” one of the study authors, M G Thakkar, said. It was likely to be 150 million years old. Similar specimens have been discovered in the Americas, Australia and Europe.
Gujarat is home to one of the world’s largest known deposits of dinosaur remains.
This groundbreaking ichthyosaur discovery, first announced in the academic PLOS One Journal on Wednesday, could shed light on a possible marine seaway between India and South America when the ancient continents were fused together millions of years ago, experts say. – AFP