GrippiaGrippia is a genus of early ichthyopterygian, an extinct group of reptiles that resembled dolphins. Its only species is Grippia longirostris. It was a relatively small ichthyopterygian, measuring around long. Fossil remains from Svalbard from the specimen SVT 203 were originally assigned to G. longirostris but are now thought to have belonged to a non-ichthyopterygian diapsid related to Helveticosaurus. Fossils have been found along the coasts of Greenland, China, Japan, Norway, and Canada (Sulfur Mountain Formation); of Early Triassic age.
CartorhynchusCartorhynchus (meaning "shortened snout") is an extinct genus of early ichthyosauriform marine reptile that lived during the Early Triassic epoch, about 248 million years ago. The genus contains a single species, Cartorhynchus lenticarpus, named in 2014 by Ryosuke Motani and colleagues from a single nearly-complete skeleton found near Chaohu, Anhui Province, China.
Timeline of ichthyosaur researchThis timeline of ichthyosaur research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the ichthyosauromorphs, a group of secondarily aquatic marine reptiles whose later members superficially resembled dolphins, sharks, or swordfish. Scientists have documented ichthyosaur fossils at least as far back as the late . At that time, a scholar named Edward Lhwyd published a book on British fossils that misattributed some ichthyosaur vertebrae to actual fishes; their true nature was not recognized until the .
IchthyosaurIchthyosaurs (Ancient Greek for "fish lizard" – ἰχθύς and σαῦρος) are large extinct marine reptiles. Ichthyosaurs belong to the order known as Ichthyosauria or Ichthyopterygia ('fish flippers' – a designation introduced by Sir Richard Owen in 1842, although the term is now used more for the parent clade of the Ichthyosauria). Ichthyosaurs thrived during much of the Mesozoic era; based on fossil evidence, they first appeared around 250 million years ago (Ma) and at least one species survived until about 90 million years ago, into the Late Cretaceous.
