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 live birth to their young (rather than laying eggs, as you traditionally think of when it comes to dinosaurs).

Further down, there’s a history of discoveries. The first was found in Wales, back in 1699 — at least fossil fragments. Nevada has apparently been a hotbed of discoveries, which is one reason why the dinosaur is also the state’s fossil, something I’ll explore more in a future post.

The page ends by covering the evolution of ichthyosaurs and links to a variety of resources. The image above also came from Wikipedia — more about it here.

I finally got an actual picture of an ichthyosaur up on the blog in the logo. Dann Pigdon gave me permission to use an illustration he did. If you’re looking for dinosaur pictures in general, Dann has a great collection of his work over at Dann’s Dinosaurs.

Here be monsters from Nunatsiaq News covers how researchers from McGill University have found a fossilized ichthyosaur. It’s apparently the first time one has been found so far north near the Arctic circle. It’s also far smaller than other ichthyosaur species.

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 million years ago.
• They disappeared about 90 million years ago.
• They had flippers.
• They had big eyes — in fact, one type had the biggest eye ever recorded for any living creature!