A sea reptile in the Kachchh desert
The 2016 excavation of India’s first Jurassic ichthyosaur.
Desert rocks, ancient sea
Today the Kachchh district of Gujarat is semi-arid. During the Jurassic it lay beneath a shallow sea, and its rocks preserve ammonites, bivalves and marine reptiles.
The find
In 2016 a team of Indian and German researchers excavated a largely articulated ichthyosaur skeleton near Lodai. Published in 2017, it was the first Jurassic ichthyosaur reported from India. Its length is estimated at around 5.5 metres, and it belongs to the Ophthalmosauridae, a family of large-eyed ichthyosaurs.
Why it matters
The specimen supports the view that the seas around India and Madagascar were connected to other Gondwanan seas during the Late Jurassic, allowing marine reptiles to move between them.