I’ve always thought of ichthyosaurs as dinosaurs. But technically, I gather they’re classed as ancient marine reptiles while dinosaurs were those ancient reptiles that lived on land. Wikipedia highlights this issue more. Ichthyosaurs, of course, could swim. Since they aren’t dinosaurs, could dinosaurs swim?
Swimming dinosaurs touched bottom of lake from Reuters says yes, certain types. […]

Sea monster search draws MSU scientist to land of polar bears from Montana State University’s press office is a feature looking at their paleontologist Pat Druckenmiller and how he goes to the Arctic in search of fossiles. It touches on him finding a complete ichthyosaur skull in 2004.

Kathleen Bousquet posted here on the blog that she wanted a replica toy ichthyosaur for her granddaughter. That got me looking to see what’s out there in the way of ichthyosaur toys and gifts. Not a lot, but I did find her toy and a few other items.
The Miniature Zoo has a plastic toy here […]

Categorizing universal phenotypes from George Dvorsky raises the interesting issue of ichthyosaurs as occupying the role of dolphin’s in today’s animal world.
Ichthyosaurs were reptiles; dolphins are mammals. They might look similar, but they were completely different creatures. Still, Dvorsky argues that were the same in terms of the role they played:
In its day [the ichthyosaur] […]

From Palaonotology, this new paper covers how at least one new genus and species of ichthyosaurs has been discovered from deposits of the Loon River Formation at Hay River, Northwest Territories, Canada.
Cretaceous ichthyosaurs, from what I understand, have all been part of the Platypterygius genus. The new fossils don’t fit that genus, and so […]

Daren Naish in Life in the Oxford Clay sea writes about the ancient creatures that can be found in the mudrock formation that covers much of Britain and northern France — ichthyosaurs among them. Well, one type — Ophthalmosaurus– the name coming from its large eyes.

Since there hasn’t been any ichthyosaur news so far this week, I thought I’d review another general resource about these dinosaur dolphins.
This time, it’s the Wikipedia page about them. It starts out explaining that Ichthyosaur comes from the Greek words fish and lizard. You get a general description about them, learning things like they gave […]

What’s an ichthyosaur? If you see a picture of one, you’ll likely recognize it. It’s a prehistoric creature that looks like a dolphin but really is a reptile. The Ichthyosaur Page provides an excellent overview for understanding these creatures. You’ll learn that:

They swam in the sea, when dinosaurs were walking on the land, about 250 […]