B.B.C. Article
A fossil stored in a Doncaster museum for 30 years and thought to be a plaster copy has turned out to be a new species of ancient reptile



A young palaeontologist working with the University of Manchester found the fossil in 2008, in the collections of Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery.
He realised it was the 189-million-year-old remains of an ichthyosaur - an extinct marine reptile.
Further study confirmed it to be a previously unknown species.
The finding has now been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Dean Lomax, the 25-year-old palaeontologist who studied the specimen, said it was so well preserved he could determine the contents of its stomach.

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