DinoFrontier
About Ophthalmosaurus
Ophthalmosaurus was an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile with a streamlined, dolphin-like body, a crescent-shaped tail fluke and a dorsal fin. It lived in seas around the world in the Middle and Late Jurassic.
It is named for its enormous eyes. Each eye was around 22 cm across, among the largest relative to body size of any vertebrate. They were supported by a ring of bones called the sclerotic ring.
Those eyes suggest it hunted in dim, deep water or at night, diving after squid-like cephalopods and belemnites. It had a long, slender snout with small teeth.
Ophthalmosaurus facts
- Ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young in the water, and fossils of mothers with embryos are known.
- Its body shape is a classic case of convergent evolution: it looks like a dolphin but is a reptile, and lived over 100 million years before the first dolphins.
- Studies of its eyes and body suggest it could dive to several hundred metres.
- North American fossils once named "Baptanodon" are now usually considered Ophthalmosaurus.
Discovery
Harry Govier Seeley named Ophthalmosaurus icenicus in 1874 from fossils found in the Oxford Clay of eastern England, where many well-preserved specimens have since been dug up.
