TY - JOUR
T1 - Discovery of the first ichthyosaur from the Jurassic of India
T2 - Implications for Gondwanan palaeobiogeography
AU - Prasad, Guntupalli V.R.
AU - Pandey, Dhirendra K.
AU - Alberti, Matthias
AU - Fürsich, Franz T.
AU - Thakkar, Mahesh G.
AU - Chauhan, Gaurav D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Prasad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2017/10/1
Y1 - 2017/10/1
N2 - An articulated and partially preserved skeleton of an ichthyosaur was found in the Upper Jurassic (Upper Kimmeridgian) Katrol Formation exposed at a site south of the village Lodai in Kachchh district, Gujarat (western India). Here we present a detailed description and inferred taxonomic relationship of the specimen. The present study revealed that the articulated skeleton belongs to the family Ophthalmosauridae. The new discovery from India further improves the depauperate fossil record of ichthyosaurs from the former Gondwanan continents. Based on the preserved length of the axial skeleton and anterior part of the snout and taking into account the missing parts of the skull and postflexural region, it is suggested that the specimen may represent an adult possibly reaching a length of 5.0–5.5 m. The widespread occurrence of ophthalmosaurids in the Upper Jurassic deposits of western Tethys, Madagascar, South America and India points to possible faunal exchanges between the western Tethys and Gondwanan continents through a southern seaway.
AB - An articulated and partially preserved skeleton of an ichthyosaur was found in the Upper Jurassic (Upper Kimmeridgian) Katrol Formation exposed at a site south of the village Lodai in Kachchh district, Gujarat (western India). Here we present a detailed description and inferred taxonomic relationship of the specimen. The present study revealed that the articulated skeleton belongs to the family Ophthalmosauridae. The new discovery from India further improves the depauperate fossil record of ichthyosaurs from the former Gondwanan continents. Based on the preserved length of the axial skeleton and anterior part of the snout and taking into account the missing parts of the skull and postflexural region, it is suggested that the specimen may represent an adult possibly reaching a length of 5.0–5.5 m. The widespread occurrence of ophthalmosaurids in the Upper Jurassic deposits of western Tethys, Madagascar, South America and India points to possible faunal exchanges between the western Tethys and Gondwanan continents through a southern seaway.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0185851
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0185851
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85032218849
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 12
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 10
M1 - e0185851
ER -