Nicely Preserved Ichthyosaur Vertebra

This is a large Ichthyosaur from the Jurassic aged Kimmeridge Clay, in England. This particular example is in very good shape with little of the weathering seen on many verts for this location.

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.

Belemnites were an extinct order of cephalopods (think shelled squid) that lived during the Mesozoic era.