What is it about?
This skull bone is rarely preserved anywhere close to this complete, so it went completely unrecognised for what it was - even to Liopleurodon specialists.
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Why is it important?
Despite belonging to a large suspension-feeding fish, Leedsichthys bones are commonly misidentified as dinosaur bones (most commonly - but not exclusively - stegosaur), but it is highly unusual for a bone to be misttributed the other way - to Leedsichthys.
Perspectives
The bone had lain in the collections of the Sedgwick Museum for over a century, with only a 'Leedsichthys sp.' label in the tray with the bone. It was only when I visited to see all of the Oxford Clay Leedsichthys holdings at that museum, that I realised that this was a misidentification: no vertebral components preserve from Leedsichthys. Mark Evans correctly identified it as a Liopleurodon exoccipital-opisthotic, after I sent him images of it. I will always feel bad that my name precedes his in the authorship list, as knowing what it is, is surely more of a contribution than 'well it's not that'!
Dr Jeff J Liston
Yunnan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The first relatively complete exoccipital-opisthotic from the braincase of the Callovian pliosaur, Liopleurodon, Geological Magazine, July 2003, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0016756803007829.
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