Hidden sea dragons—discovering new species of Jurassic ichthyosaurs in museum collections

Ichthyosaurs were a highly successful group of marine reptiles that first appeared in the Early Triassic, around 248 million years ago, and became extinct about 90 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous. They are often referred to as ‘swimming dinosaurs’, but they are not dinosaurs. They were fully aquatic marine tetrapods that lived in the seas, whilst their more famous counterparts, the dinosaurs, roamed the land (Fig. [Figure 1. Life reconstruction of Ichthyosaurus larkini. (Image copyright Julio Lacerda, ...]). They achieved a world‐wide distribution, and well over a hundred species are known, with thousands of specimens having been found. Ichthyosaurs evolved similar body plans to sharks, dolphins and whales, and are great examples of convergent evolution.