A SEA creature thought to be 190 million years old has finally been named 24 years after it was found on the English coast.
The fossil is nearly complete and belongs to a group of ancient marine reptiles that shared the planet with dinosaurs.
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The researchers who found the fossil have named it Xiphodracon goldencapsis.
The name comes from the Greek “Xiphos” meaning sword and “dracon” for dragon.
The species name refers to where it was found, Golden Cap in Dorset.
Found on the Jurassic Coast in 2001 the super specimen is an icthysaur dating back to the Pliensbachian period of the Early Jurassic era, between 193-184 million years ago.
“The Sword Dragon of Dorset” is estimated to have been three metres long has a large eye socket and a long sword-esque snout.
Dr Dean Lomax, from the University of Manchester, took on the specimen from an ichthyology specialist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada after he retired, and it was studied for the first time in detail.
He said the fossil is a missing piece in the dinosaur’s evolution as several families went extinct in the period and new families emerged. He hopes the skeleton will explain what caused this shift in the species.
Dr Lomax said: “I remember seeing the skeleton for the first time in 2016,”
“Back then, I knew it was unusual, but I did not expect it to play such a pivotal role in helping to fill a gap in our understanding.”
He highlighted some of his favourite features including the long snout and enormous eyes he called: “Pun intended – eye catching.”
“Staring into its eyes and looking at the long jaws with thin, pointed teeth, you can really imagine this animal in life, hunting fish and squid.
“I’d also say that a bone around the nostril opening, called the lacrimal, is super weird. We’ve never seen anything like this type of bone before in any ichthyosaur,” he added.
The “sword dragon”, as the most complete reptile from the Pliensbachian period, can help pin point when the all-important shift in the species occurred.
Fossil collector Chris Moore described the moment he made the find: “I spotted a section of tail vertebrae sticking out and then covered it up and got permission to dig in and have a look at what was there.”
He added: “I followed the vertebrae and which carried on, and then found the rear paddles, and it carried on going: the rib cage was there, the front paddles and then I got to the skull.”
Chis was shocked that the fossil hadn’t been flattened over time and was still three dimensional.
He said his find was “in the mists of time” whilst it waited over two decades for a name from the team at the University of Manchester.
“This is exceptionally long, but in geological time, I suppose its nothing”, he added.
Prof Judy Massare, an ichthyosaur expert from State University of New York, told the BBC: “Thousands of complete or nearly complete ichthyosaur skeletons are known from before and after the Pliensbachian.
“Clearly, a major change in species diversity occurred sometime in the Pliensbachian.”
“Xiphodracon helps to determine when the change occurred, but we still don’t know why,” she added.
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