The 5.5 meter ichthyosaur, believed to be at last 90 million years old, points to India’s evolutionary links A near complete-Jurassic-era fossil of an interesting animal that looks like a mash up of a dolphin and lizard, and lived during the twilight of the dinosaurs, has been unearthed in kutch, Gujarat. Ichthyosaurs, or ‘fish-lizards’ in Greek, were largest reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs. While many ichthyosaur fossil have been found in North America and Europe, the fossil record in the South Hemisphere has mostly been limited to South America and Australia. Until now. Guntupalli Prasad, a geologist at the University of Delhi, said when a fossil bone from the animal’s skeleton was first found by an Indo-German research team in kutch in 2016 suspected it to be a dinosaur. “But the bone was too long and later the whole skeleton was unearthed. It’s the first Jurassic ichthyosaur found In India,” he told the Hindu. The 5.5 meter long skeleton is thought to belong to the Ophtalmosauridae family, which lived between 165 and 90 million years ago, when the arid kutch was a sea. The remains were found among fossil of ammonites and squid-like belemnites, and the way the creature’s teeth were worn out suggest it ate animal with thick, bony coverings, the team of scientists report in the October 25 edition of PLOSONE. Dr. Prasad, one of the authors of the reports, notes: “This also throws light on the evolution and diversity of ichthyosaurs in the Indo-Madagascan region of the India’s biological connectivity with other continents in the Jurassic.” Sparse evidence Earlier too, researcher have discovered evidence of ichthyosaurs in prehistoric India. Remnants were reported from ariyalur, Tamil Nadu in 2016 but these were only fossil of teeth and part of vertebra. In kutch, the team reported the finding of vertebral column, ribs, neural spines and a part of the snout.