2.45" Ichthyosaur (Platypterygius) Tooth - Stary Oskol, Russia

This is a 2.45" rooted tooth of a Ichthyosaur (Platypterygius) from Stary Oskol, Russia. These teeth are very unusual to see and this is one of a handful of teeth I recently acquired. The last mm of the tip of the tooth has been restored and there is some fairly large areas of gap fill restoration on the upper portion of the root.

Ichthyosaurs ("Fish Lizard") was a giant marine reptile which thrived from much of the Mesozoic era. They evolved in the mid Triassic from a group of unidentified land reptiles which transition back into the water. This line evolved in parallel to the ancestors of todays dolphins and whales, something known as convergent evolution.