A fossil found in limestone along a remote South Texas riverbed could be that of a dolphin-like reptile that swam in oceans 90 million years ago, according to paleontologists.
The discovery was made two years ago by petroleum geologist James Harcourt, who works for the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. It went largely unnoticed until a photograph of the fossil appeared on the cover of the commission’s annual report last year.
The find is unique, because it appears to be a nearly complete fossil of an ichthyosaur, which grew to about 1.8m long and had the sleek body of a dolphin and long, toothy jaws of a dinosaur, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The fossil was found on private land near the border town of Del Rio as Harcourt and some colleagues were studying the Eagle Ford Group, which is one of the state’s most productive shale oil basins.
Harcourt spotted a row of bones imprinted on rock. When the surface dirt was cleared away, Harcourt and his colleagues realized the limestone held a large skull, long spine and ribs.
“Very rarely do we get really complete skeletons out of the Eagle Ford,” said Josh Lively, a doctoral candidate specializing in marine reptile fossils at the University of Texas. “Whenever you have an associated skeleton like this, when you have multiple parts of the animal, it’s a really an important find.”
Ichthyosaurs were disappearing from the seas when the Eagle Ford formed, about 88 million to 96 million years ago.
There is a chance it could be a plesiosaur, a much larger underwater reptile, but paleontologists will not know for sure until the bones are exhumed, which can only happen with the property owner’s permission, Lively said.
Fossils cannot be studied, and their contributions to science cannot be measured, until they are out of the ground, University of Texas at Austin director of vertebrate paleontology collections Matt Brown said.
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