The skeleton of an extinct ‘fish lizard’ locked in a glass case over 16ft from the ground for the last 100 years has finally been studied, thanks to a selfie stick on a fishing rod.
The 145 million-year-old Nannopterygius is a species of ichthyosaur, which swam the seas of our planet for about 76 million years. It is on display in the Natural History Museum, London, but its glass cabinet is hung too high for easy examination.
Russian palaeontologist Nikolay Zverkov was desperate to see the London specimen as he thought some of the Russian ichthyosaurs might be similar.
It turns out he was right, and that this particular species of swimming prehistoric reptile was common in its day, the Jurassic period.
Read more at University Of Portsmouth
Image Credit: University Of Portsmouth