Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Paleontologists have uncovered parts of a Jurᴀssic sea creature in a quarry near Peterborough, United Kingdom.

Fossil hunter Jamie Jordan unearthed as many as 20 sections of vertebrae belonging to an ichthyosaur called Ophthalmosaurus.

Opthalmosaurus resembled a dolphin with a long snout – and lived during the Jurᴀssic Period. Credit: Adobe Stock -dottedyeti

The Ophthalmosaurus roamed the sea about 165 to 1450 million years ago and could be up to‭ ‬6‭ ‬meters long. The extinct animal had a robust, streamlined body that was nearly as wide as it was tall in frontal view. It also had extremely large eyes.

“Ophthalmosaurus means an eye lizard in Greek,” Jordan, who runs the Fossils Galore museum in March, Cambridgeshire explained.

The Jurᴀssic sea creature resembled a dolphin with a long snout and ate smaller sea animals. Reaching depths of 600 meters (2,000 ft) or more, Ophthalmosaurus could dive for about 20 minutes.

The fossil bones found by Jordan are still rather well-preserved, and a “fundraising effort has begun to raise £5,000 for ground penetration radar to find the rest of the animal’s skeleton,” the BBC reports.

The team at Fossils Galore will now preserve and clean the fossils.

“The creature would have been about 16ft long (5m). The remains we found indicate this is the rear end of the animal.

We have used our regular dating techniques and its age is a rough estimate,” Jordan told the BBC.

For safety and confidentiality reasons, Jordan and his team will not reveal the exact location of the find.

As reported by the BBC, “a £5,000 fundraising effort will begin to source ground-penetrating radar to seek out the rest of the remains and continue the excavation.

“These are fossilised bones, they have turned into rock pretty much,” Mr Jordan said.

“We need this special archaeological equipment to find the other parts and who knows what else we might discover.”

First described by Harry Seeley in 1874, fossils of this genus have been recorded in Europe, with a second species possibly being found in North America.

Written by Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com Staff Writer