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I’ve been trying to find out what ichthyosaurs are found in Dorset, from the Lyme Regis, but I’m having quite a bit of trouble. I’ve found sites that list the species of different types of animals found at certain locations, but I can’t find anything like that about “Dorset” or “Lyme Regis”. At the moment I’m interested in finding out out the ichthyosaurs, but in the past I’ve looked for the same thing about plesiosaur/pliosaur, and croc species, so that would be great if anyone had information about pretty much any species of reptiles found there. Thanks very much for any and everyone’s time and effort! As always, it’s extremely appreciated!

Hi everyone, I got offered this pair of marine reptile teeth as those of ichthyosaurs, but am having a hard time making my mind up about their identification. I'd therefore like to ask for your opinions. The teeth were found during works around Nancy back in 2004, and, based on other ichthyosaur finds from the region, likely dates the Toarcian stage of the Early Jurassic (though, from what I can tell, Oxfordian marine deposits are also accessible in the area). This makes them roughly the same age as material from the Posidonia Shale/Holzmaden and Whitby, but slightly younger than that of the Lyme Bay area. The above photograph is the only one I have, with the seller being on fieldwork and unable to provide much further information for the next couple of weeks. Although we can safely eliminate marine crocodile as contenders for the original owners of these teeth, and I think they are too big to have belonged to fish, I'm undecided on whether these are just highly worn ichthyosaur teeth or plesiosaur teeth. There's something to be said for both. The tall, slender shape of the teeth and their slight curvature, for instance, would seem to fit plesiosaurian teeth, as would, most significantly, the round root of the bigger tooth. In that case, however, the smaller tooth does seem a bit stubby, and the traces of ornamentation along the midsection of the larger tooth surprisingly equidistantly spaced. Generally, the morphology of the smaller tooth to me suggests ichthyosaur rather than plesiosaur. But if that were the case, I'd expect either enamel folds on the crowns themselves, folds on the root, or both (even when ichthyosaur teeth have smooth enamel, I find they still have folds on their roots). I'd also expect the root to be more polygonal in shape, somewhere in the range of triangular to (rounded) square. This is not the case. Now there seems to be some ornamentation midway up the larger specimen which equidistant spacing correlates well with patterns of the folds found on ichthyosaur teeth, thus may indicate the tooth is ophthalmosaurid and therefore Oxfordian rather than Torcian in age. The below image I drew up makes the comparison: As you can see, the match is less then ideal, as the top part of the French tooth is completely devoid of enamel folds, whereas in an ophthalmosaurid tooth the plicidentine folds actually taper out until the enamel is clear. @belemniten, however, posted images of a couple of his ichthyosaur teeth from Holzmaden, one of which appears to show a similar pattern as visible in the middle of the French tooth under consideration here, including what appears to be a round root: However, when looking at other images of the same tooth, it turns out that the root does have folds, as you'd expect from ichthyosaur teeth: Similarly, the below tooth seems to have a superficially similar appearance to the French tooth for the hairline cracking of the enamel, and the fact that enamel appears to be missing from the crown immediately above the root proper (which, again, exhibits folds, however). Still, if the "smooth round root" on the French tooth would've been covered by enamel as well, this would make for a very tall tooth as far as ichthyosaurs go. As illustrated by the specimen below (source), though, ichthyosaur teeth do occasionally have round roots: Moreover, the folds on the root don't always run the full height of it (image source): Lastly, as the specimen below demonstrates (source), the entire root can look completely smooth, presumably from wear: As such, I'm wondering whether the French tooth specimen might not be a very worn ichthyosaur tooth, with its parts being composed as such: This doesn't particularly make too much sense to me either, as the part of the root with folds is rather long and has a very abrupt transition into the remainder of the root. In addition, it raises the question of how the tooth would've gotten so worn. Though I understand there are fluvially exposed sites around Nancy, could this have caused the wear we're seeing. Or would the wear rather be peridepositional? So, I guess I can summarize my questions as: Do these look like plesiosaur or ichthyosaur teeth? If plesiosaurian, what would the equidistant striations on the midsection of the tooth be? If ichthyosaurian, do these teeth look more ophthalmosaurid or pre-ophthalmosaur? How might the wear I think I'm seeing be explained? Thanks for the help! cc @paulgdls @PointyKnight @DE&i @Welsh Wizard @RuMert @FF7_Yuffie

Hi A Russian Pliosaur or Ichthyosaur tooth. I think the tooth looks real, but the root looks somewhat suspicious... Is it common practice to fabricate root in Russian fossils? The locality is: Lower Cretaceous, Stary Oskol, Belogrod Oblast, Russia. And, is it good to say this is from an Ichthyosaur? I googled the locality but was not able to find info..

Had a great day today at Saltwick Bay, after a little while scratching around picking up Dactys, I split a couple of nice big Hildoceras, one of which I’ve left with the shop in town to get tidied up. While looking around to try to beat my finds, my daughter found a little piece of gyrosteus bone. After stopping to do a bit of splitting (including a nice little pyrite Dactylioceras) we headed back and daughter was really pleased to find a slightly worn little ichthyosaur vertebra. That refocused the eyes and I spotted a partial ichthy skull in the shale, once we’d got over the excitement we scoured the area for more. The only other thing we found that looked like bone was this (top six pictures), could it be bone or is it something else or nothing? Thank you for looking.

I wanted to very briefly share something really pretty awesome. Some folks here know that in addition to Fossils on Wheels, I also work for the Gateway Science Museum. It’s a small children’s science museum and our fall exhibit is going to be about fossils. We are part of CSU Chico and the Geology Department is using our facilities to do some preparation work on a few fossils for the exhibit. I took some pictures of one awesome specimen. The table in the center of the frame contains multiple pieces of a Shastasaurus. It is a remarkable and scientifically important specimen. It was found near Shasta Lake and it’s Triassic. Close to complete and containing something special that I can’t really elaborate on. All of those bundles are ribs and verts. The second picture is a close up of one slab. I got to pick it up and it is really quite heavy but not everybody gets to hug a Shastasaurus so totally worth it lol In the far right of the picture, you can see the edge of a table and on that table is a partial Mastodon jaw includes a complete tusk though in two pieces. I’ll take pictures of that and a baby whale piece next time I’m at work. My desk is to the left of the whiteboard you see in the frame. My workspace has been taken over by large fossil critters !

Another unknown piece, but at least with some information on its locale - Lavernock, Wales, UK. I believe it to be either Ichthyosaur or Plesiosaur but I'm afraid I don't currently have an idea what it is. I'd appreciate any input. Thank you, John

Hi all, I've had the below piece in my collection for a number of years now, having acquired it thinking it was a juvenile plesiosaur propodial. It comes from the Oxford Clay of Peterborough and is of Callovian Jurassic age. However, when recently doing some research towards answering another question on TFF, I realised that - even though there's some plastic deformation going on - it doesn't quite look like the juvenile plesiosaur propodial I have from the rhaetic at Aust, nor does it look like a plesiosaur propodial in a more general sense (see both post and images below). There are some oddities that have started to make me wonder, in not a plesiosaur propodial, what else it may be in that case. The bone is quite dense, so is definitely marine reptile. And, since I'm quite sure it's not ichthyosaurian, this, I believe, leaves only pl(es)iosaur and teleosaur. Morphologically, the bone consists of a shaft that widens towards one end, with the other end having broken off. The widened end, top-side, forms a bit of an overhang across what appears to be an intact articulation surface, with a notch cutting into it from the right. At the broken end, also on the right, there appears to be a slight twist in the bone. This is, moreover, the side that's rounded along the length of the bone, whereas the other side appears carinated. Although there's some crushing on the underside of the bone, that surface appears markedly more flat than the obverse. It is primarily the facts that one of the edges is (more) angular and that the bone thickens towards the widening end - rather than thins out, as in a typical plesiosaur propodial - that make me feel this is not a plesiosaur (sensu lato) propodial. Unfortunately, I don't have enough qualitative reference material on teleosaurs myself (some images below) to evaluate whether they could be a candidate for the bone - such as long or girdle bones - and didn't find anything matching amongst the figures in Johnson, Young, Steel and Lepage (2015) or Young, Sachs & Abel (2018) either. So I'm left thinking may be it could be a plesiosaur ilium, as in the other post referenced above. There are definitely some features that seem to argue in its favour, such as the flat back, slight twist and widening distal end. But lacking the proximal end of the bone makes it harder to judge, and the thickening of the bone towards the widened part seems to conflict with the idea of the bone being an ilium. Still, there are very few flat narrow bones in a plesiosaur outside of its extremities... Machimosaurus sp. at the Museum voor Natuurwetenschappen in Brussels (source: Wikipedia) Thoracic region of Machimosaurus sp. at Paléospace l'Odyssée at Villers-sur-Mer Metriorhynchus superciliosus at the Paläontologische Summlung MUT Tübingen Thoracic region of Steneosaurus sp. at the Fossilienmuseum Dotternhausen Steneosaurus spp. specimens at Urweltmuseum Hauff in Holzmaden Steneosaurus sp. leg bones at the Paläontologische Sammlung MUT Tübingen

Hi all! Those who follow my reports know I was planning another trip to Ulyanovsk in spring. Well, here is the report, in continuation of 1, 2 and 3. This time I was on the shore for 3 days. In short, the weather was fine, the ice abundant, the competition high and the finds scarce. The trip felt more like an extravagant outing than a productive fossil hunt

@paulgdls is it possible to best guesstimate the size of a Ophthalmosaurus icenicus from just one solitary anterior caudal vertebra. Height 10 cms Width 10.5 cms Length measured at the neural canal 3 cms

Daughter and I had a walk in the Whitby area this morning, didn’t come away with much but these two little chunks of bone made the trip worthwhile. The larger one (pics 3-6) appears to have ribs no more than about 5mm in diameter along with a lot of other bones. The smaller one (pics 1,2,7,8) looks to have two or three partial verts, but I can’t see if the centres are concave like ichthyosaur and to me they look too flat to be ples/croc. Can anyone shed any light on either piece? Thank you for looking

I propose to buy this specimen if it is real. The seller told me that this specimen should belong to the pliosaur based on his experience, but I had a hard time to identify whether it is an ichthyosaur tooth or a pliosaur tooth. Is it an ichthyosaur tooth or a pliosaur tooth?

This is an unprepped ichthyosaur from Luoping, Yunnnan Province of China. It measures 70cm in length. Any idea which species is that? And the completeness of the fossil?

Hi all! I was finally able to visit the Volga site thanks to a water level/ good weather window. The journey was mostly a success, I got a better understanding of the site, used new means of transportation and examined more of the shoreline. Among the finds were two dozens of marine reptile verts and bone fragments and LOTS of ammonites and other mollusks. Unfortunately the river level was not low enough, 1m higher than during my 1st trip, 0,5m lower than in the 2nd. But it was at least possible to walk the shore. There's still a lot more to do, but now I have a pretty clear idea how to maximize the hunt results for the next trip. The report will be picture-heavy and divided into several blocks I'll be adding in the next few days. Let's start with the scenery.

Hi, I'm considering this partial ichthyosaur jaw with 5 teeth (3 in a natural position and 2 others that have been displaced--one is on top and one is on the backside) from Jurassic (Tithonian) deposits in Tartarstan, Russia. The seller, who is also the finder/preparer, has identified this as Undorosaurus and noted that there is repair to the last tooth at the end, which broke and has been glued back together, and some holes that he filled in on that tooth--these are shown in the second photo with the red line (repaired break) and circles (filled in holes), as drawn by seller--but no other restorations or repair. The size of the piece is 6 x 5.5 x 1.8 cm, and the teeth (including root) are 3.5 to 4 cm long. Does this look to be as it's described above, including the genus ID? Any red flags or other things I should know or ask? Thank you!

Hello all I acquired this tooth recently. It's those famous russian deposits that produce ichthyosaur and pliosaur remains. I bought it as an ichthyosaur tooth, but could it be it's pliosaur? I've noticed rootef ichthyosaur teeth have a bit different root, like a pronged root. But I'm hardly an expert so I'd greatly appreciate feedback from others

I have just seen this for sale and while it could potentially be a nice addition to my daughter’s ichthyosaur collection, the attempted prep is a bit off putting. The seller says it’s on ‘calcite beef’. How difficult would it be to just tidy up those air scribe marks? I don’t see the need for any further exposure, just a bit of tidying. Do forum rules allow me to ask what the appropriate cost of getting this done professionally would be if I didn’t fancy attempting it? Thank you for looking