Ancient Marine Reptile Fossils Discovered in Arctic

Fossils of the earliest-known ichthyosaur, a type of marine reptile that lived approximately 250 million years ago, have been discovered in Norway's Arctic island of Spitsbergen. The 11 tail vertebrae discovered indicate that the animal was about 10 feet long, making it a top predator. The fossils showed that this ichthyosaur was quite advanced anatomically, indicating that the long-anticipated transitional ichthyosaur ancestor must have appeared much earlier than previously suspected. The discovery may suggest that ichthyosaur origins predated the mass extinction event by up to perhaps 20 million years.