The fossil of a previously unknown ichthyosaur species had been mistaken as a plaster model in a museum for more than 30 years, according to findings published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology last week.
These extinct, dolphin-shaped marine reptiles swam the oceans for millions of years during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. Back in 2008, Dean Lomax from the University of Manchester came upon a plaster copy of an ichthyosaur fossil in the collections of the Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery in the U.K. Except it wasn’t a cast at all: Not only was it real, it was different enough from any known specimen to warrant its own species.
via IFLScience
Image: Reconstruction by James McKay
