A farm in England was the unlikely source of a Jurassic jackpot: a treasure trove of 183 million-year-old fossils. On the outskirts of Gloucestershire in the Cotswolds, beneath soil that is currently trampled under the hooves of grazing cattle, researchers recently uncovered the fossilized remains of fish, giant marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs, squids, insects and other ancient animals dating to the early part of the Jurassic period (201.3 million to 145 million years ago).
Of the more than 180 fossils logged during the dig, one of the standout specimens was a three-dimensionally preserved fish head that belonged to Pachycormus, an extinct genus of ray-finned fishes. The fossil, which researchers found embedded in a hardened limestone nodule poking out of the clay, was exceptionally well preserved and contained soft tissues, including scales and an eye. The 3D nature of the pose of the specimen’s head and body was such that the researchers couldn’t compare it to any other previous find.
“The
closest analogue we could think of was Big Mouth Billy Bass,” said
Neville Hollingworth, a field geologist with the University of
Birmingham who discovered the site with his wife, Sally, a fossil
preparator and the dig’s coordinator. “The eyeball and socket were well
preserved. Usually, with fossils, they’re lying flat. But in this case,
it was preserved in more than one dimension, and it looks like the fish
is leaping out of the rock,” Hollingworth told Live Science. …