A trio of palaeontologists, led by the University of Manchester’s Dean Lomax, have described a brand-new ichthyosaur in a study published today in Papers in Palaeontology.
Owing to the skeleton’s distinctively long and narrow snout, the team has named the new species Xiphodracon goldencapensis, or the ‘Sword Dragon of Dorset’.
Xiphodracon is roughly the same size as a dolphin, which makes it average-sized for an ichthyosaur. As a group, ichthyosaurs ranged from 1m to 25m in length and were some of the most formidable predators in the world’s oceans from the Early Triassic (250 million years ago) to the Late Cretaceous (90 million years ago).
What sets Xiphodracon apart from the thousands of other ichthyosaurs found on the UK’s Jurassic Coast is the rocks that it was discovered in.
In 2001, local fossil collector Chris Moore found the near-complete skeleton just east of Golden Cap, lodged in rocks dated to the Pliensbachian age of the Early Jurassic.
This is the first time in over 100 years that an ichthyosaur has been found in such rocks. Lomax and his colleagues also believe the skeleton may be the world’s most complete prehistoric reptile from the Pliensbachian.
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“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 of a complex faunal turnover during the Pliensbachian,” said Lomax in an associated press release. “This time is pretty crucial for ichthyosaurs as several families went extinct and new families emerged, yet Xiphodracon is something you might call a ‘missing piece of the ichthyosaur puzzle’.”
After Moore discovered the near-complete skeleton of Xiphodracon in 2001, it was acquired by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, where it remained unstudied until recently.
Lomax, along with colleagues Judy Massare (State University of NY at Brockport, US) and Erin Maxwell (State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Germany), described the skeleton bone by bone and identified several features never before seen in ichthyosaurs. The strangest was a bone around the nostril - called a lacrimal - that has several prong-like bony structures.
Xiphodracon is incredibly important for palaeontologists studying how ichthyosaurs evolved as it lived during a time when there was a significant turnover in familial groups.
Massare explained how Xiphodracon may help palaeontologists fill some gaps in the fossil record, “thousands of complete or nearly complete ichthyosaur skeletons are known from strata before and after the Pliensbachian. The two faunas are quite distinct, with no species in common, even though the overall ecology is similar. 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.”
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Like other ichthyosaurs, Xiphodracon is believed to have dined on fish and squid, as well as on other iconic marine life of the period, such as ammonites. It may have also been prey for other, larger ichthyosaurs.
“The skull appears to have been bitten by a large predator - likely another much larger species of ichthyosaur - giving us a cause of death for this individual. Life in the Mesozoic oceans was a dangerous prospect,” said Maxwell.
The skeleton is due to go on display at the Royal Ontario Museum soon.
Find out more about the study: A new long and narrow-snouted ichthyosaur illuminates a complex faunal turnover during an undersampled Early Jurassic (Pliensbachian) interval.
Top image: Xiphodracon goldencapensis skeleton. Credit: Dr Dean Lomax
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