An artist’s depiction of Dearcmhara shawcrossi, as it swam in the warm seas around Scotland 170 million years ago. Image from University of Edinburgh / Todd Marshall.
No, it’s not the mythical Loch Ness monster, but 170 million years ago Dearcmhara shawcrossi prowled the warm coastal waters of Scotland in pursuit of fish and other reptiles. Scientists announced the discovery of the previously unknown prehistoric marine reptile in the Scottish Journal of Geology today. An artist’s depiction shows a dolphin-like creature measuring about 14 feet from snout to tail that lived during the Jurassic Period. It’s a moderate-sized ichthyosaur, the dominant marine reptiles that lived in the time of dinosaurs. They were around for 150 million years, until they disappeared about 95 million years ago. This discovery fills in some of the information of the Early-to-Middle Jurassic timeline that has proven hard to crack for paleontologists.
Bearreraig Bay on the northern tip of the Isle of Skye is known for its fossil finds. Photo by Flickr user Vertigogen.
Amateur fossil hunter Brian Shawcross discovered this marine reptile’s fossils on Bearreraig Bay in the northern part of the Isle of Skye in 1959. He later donated them to the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. But it wasn’t until a consortium of scientists led by the University of Edinburgh recently re-examined the back, tail and fin pieces that they realized what they had. The new species name honors the fossil collector Shawcross. Dr. Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences said, “Without the generosity of the collector who donated the bones to a museum instead of keeping them or selling them, we would have never known that this amazing animal existed.” The genus name, Dearcmhara, (pronounced “jark vara”) is a nod to the creature’s habitat; it means “marine lizard” in Scottish Gaelic.
The Isle of Skye is famous for its dinosaur fossils, especially from the Middle Jurassic period. Photo by Flickr user torino071.
Skye is known as Scotland’s Dinosaur Isle — one of the few places in the world where dinosaur fossils from the Middle Jurassic period can be found. During the Jurassic period, much of Skye was underwater.
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