By Helen
Briggs BBC News
7 January
2019
Some 200
million years ago in what is now Warwickshire, a dolphin-like reptile died and
sank to the bottom of the sea.
The
creature's burial preserved its skull in stunning detail - enabling scientists
to digitally reconstruct it.
The
fossil, unveiled in the journal PeerJ,
gives a unique insight into the life of an ichthyosaur.
The
ferocious creature would have fed upon fish, squid and likely others of its
kind.
Its bones
were found in a farmer's field more than 60 years ago, but their significance
has only just come to light.
Remarkably,
the skull is three-dimensionally preserved and contains bones that are rarely
exposed.
"It's
taken more than half a century for this ichthyosaur to be studied and
described, but it has been worth the wait," said palaeontologist Dean
Lomax of the University of Manchester.
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