Las Vegas NowI-Team: Ichthyosaur, State Fossil of Nevada

I-Team: Ichthyosaur, State Fossil of Nevada

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Can you name the official state fossil of Nevada? It's the ichthyosaur, a behemoth that was 50 feet long and ruled the seas hundreds of millions of years ago. Some of the largest ichthyosaur fossils in the world were found in Nevada, but just recently, a new scientific controversy has emerged about how these giant reptiles got around.

This might sound like an odd topic for the I-Team. However, few people in Southern Nevada seem to know it, but there's a state park devoted to the ichthyosaur. It's in central Nevada in what used to be a mining camp called Berlin. That's where scientists found the remains of nearly 40 different ichthyosaurs. They plowed through the ocean above what is now Nevada, but back then, this land mass was down by the equator. 

One hot question raised by scientists is how these gigantic creatures get around. Did they swim like fish or fly through the water?

If you spot a strange sign on the side of the road, chances are you're inside the Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park, a well preserved mining camp that also houses the world's greatest collection of ichthyosaur fossils, most of which have been left in the ground protected by structures built over them. 

It's hard to grasp just how big they were until you compare a life-size likeness of one of these behemoths to, say, a burly visitor.

Chief Investigative Reporter George Knapp: "You wouldn't want to be swimming in the water and see one coming up would you?"

Berlin Park Ranger Mike Dinauer: Definitely not. They had 36 conical shaped teeth in each jaw."

George Knapp: "And could eat pretty much anything, I imagine?"

Mike Dinauer: "When they saw it and swam after it, if they could catch it, they would eat it.

State park ranger Mike Dinauer says about 10,000 people a year make the trek to Berlin to check out the undisputed heavyweight champ of the prehistoric seas. Millions of years ago, all of the land was covered by water. It's possible that natural upheavals caused the Nevada icthyosaurs to be trapped there, explaining why so many fossils were found around Berlin.

Mike Dinauer explained, "These mountains are about 30 million years old and the ichthyosaurs were actually uplifted with the mountains."

"It's hard to realize that it's real, that it was real, that is swam in the oceans," said Dr. Barbara Adams.

Much closer to home, the Nevada State Museum at Lorenzi Park houses the largest collection of excavated ichthyosaur parts, catalogued inside dozens of boxes, a treasure trove for paleontologists.

George Knapp: "So, this is some of the original stuff that was found in Berlin?"

Dr. Barbara Adams: "This is the stuff. This is the type fossil of shonisaurus popularis, so if anybody wants to know what it looks like, they come here and study these."

Ichthyosaurs aren't exclusive to Nevada. They are found on every continent but Antarctica. And it was an ichthyosaur found in another country that set off a debate about the Silver State's ichthyosaurs.

A paleontologist looked at one of these huge flippers and decided Nevada's shonisaurus popularis must have been an underwater flyer, moving through the ocean like birds move through air. In scientific circles, that's a mighty bold theory, an idea certain to set off heated debate. And it did.  

A Discovery Channel video shows the common notion of an ichthyosaur swimming like a normal fish using its tail for propulsion and the flippers for steering. Proponents of the flippers-as-wings theory are sticking to their guns, but the majority of scientists have come down on the side of the swimmers-not-fliers version.

Dr. Barbara Adams said, "I think something that's this shape probably didn't fly through the water. When we're talking about flying through the water, we're talking about the sort of movements that penguins do where they are using their flippers to actually propel them. If they think about penguins, they don't have much tail."

Despite how enormous the flippers are, they're not that big when compared to the entire ichthyosaur. That's why Natural History Museum curator, Barbara Adams say it wouldn't be a very efficient way to travel.

Even if the flipper mystery is solved, there are plenty of other ichthyosaur oddities to ponder.

George Knapp: "Was it essentially the biggest eye ever?"

Dr. Barbara Adams: "Yes. The biggest eye ever is from another ichthyosaur, and this is sort of a clay model."

The miners who searched for ore around Berlin didn't know what the petrified vertebrae were but found them convenient nonetheless.

"And they would use them for dinner plates and doorstops. One thing about them isn't debatable, whether flying or swimming, 225 million years ago the ichthyosaur had no equal," Adams said.

Ichthyosaurs died out about 90 million years ago. One theory is that a new species at the time -- sharks -- had an easy time preying on young ichthyosaurs, and that was the end of that.

E-mail your comments to Chief Investigative Reporter George Knapp.