Why do giant sea dragons keep being found inland?

Undiscovered “sea dragons” are lurking underneath the feet of Leicestershire and Rutland residents an expert has said. Ichthyosaur specialist Dr Dean Lomax said recent discoveries of the vast marine mammals which swam the seas of the Jurassic period in the two counties could pave the way for marking the East Midlands as an unlikely hotspot. Traditionally, ichthyosaurs are discovered along coastlines, usually because of erosion exposing evidence of the reptile remains.

But 2021’s - the largest of its type ever discovered in the UK - and the unearthing of a fragment of ichthyosaur skull this year have made experts look at the area in a new light. While the coastlines of Yorkshire and Dorset are best known for producing evidence of ichthyosaurs and the dinosaurs that roamed the land at the same time, the two share a common geology - and this runs between the two points, directly through the East Midlands. Some 140-200 million years ago, the whole area would have been largely a shallow sea, with islands to support reptiles on land and in the air as well as marine life.

But where coastline finds from this period are more abundant, the discoveries made inland stand much greater chances of being complete. Dr Lomax, a palaeontologist with the University of Bristol and University of Manchester, said: “At the Yorkshire coastline or the Jurassic coastline, often you just have partial skeletons or complete skeletons that are eroding out. “You've got cliff faces erosion.

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