They evolved separately around 250 million years ago, possibly from a crocodile-like ancestor, to resemble fish and modern dolphins. Then, they went extinct around 94 million years ago.
In 2010, palaeontologist James Crampton discovered a partial ichthyosaur skeleton while working on Coverham Station in the Clarence Valley, inland North Canterbury. This specimen dates to the Cenomanian stage during the Late Cretaceous epoch just under 100 million years ago.
The skeleton was encased within a hard concretion and was taken to be stored and catalogued at GNS Science until 2021. It was identified as an ichthyosaur because of the characteristic hourglass shaped vertebrae.
UC Adjunct Professor Paul Scofield and UC Senior Research Fellow in Palaeontology Dr Vanesa De Pietri, with PhD student George Young, have written about shedding further light on this specimen, in The Conversation: The discovery of a rare new fossil sheds light on NZ’s extinct dolphin-like reptiles.
Disclosure statement
Paul Scofield receives funding from Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund and the R.S. Allan Fund of Canterbury Museum.
George Young received funding from the UC Masters scholarship.
Vanesa De Pietri receives funding from the Royal society Te Aparangi marsden Fund.
