New ichthyosaur species named Sword Dragon with lethal snout
A beautifully preserved skeleton of a new ichthyosaur species, dubbed the Sword Dragon, has been identified from a fossil found on the UK's Jurassic Coast. The marine reptile, about 3 meters long, featured enormous eyes and a sword-like snout for hunting in dim conditions. It lived during the Early Jurassic period, around 193 to 184 million years ago.
The fossil was discovered in 2001 near Golden Cap on the UK's Jurassic Coast and has been housed in the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada for years. Dean Lomax at the University of Manchester, UK, and his colleagues recently prepared and studied the specimen, identifying it as a new species named Xiphodracon goldencapensis, meaning Sword Dragon from Golden Cap.
The skeleton reveals unique features, including an enormous eye socket for keen vision in low light and a long, sword-like snout armed with needle-like teeth suited for piercing soft-bodied prey such as squid and fish. "Needle-like piercing teeth [that] are very much designed for feasting on soft-bodied prey like squid and fish," says Lomax. "You can get a good sense of how this thing would have been in life, basically relying on really good vision to hunt, probably in dim conditions."
At about 3 meters long, comparable to a common bottlenose dolphin, the creature lived during the Pliensbachian stage of the Early Jurassic, from 193 to 184 million years ago. It boasts unprecedented details, such as a lacrimal bone around the nostril with prong-like structures. "The level of three-dimensional preservation, particularly of cranial sutures and delicate structures such as the lacrimal and prefrontal projections, is exceptional," notes Aubrey Roberts at the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo in Norway.
A dark mass between the ribs may represent its last meal, though its contents remain unidentified. This find sheds light on ichthyosaur evolution following the end-Triassic extinction 201.4 million years ago, which wiped out giant super-predators like the 25-meter Ichthyotitan. Jurassic ichthyosaurs, smaller and more diverse, filled various ecological niches. "Xiphodracon adds another hue to the broader ichthyosaur rainbow," says Neil Kelley at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, highlighting varied diets, swimming speeds, and habitats among Jurassic species.