On 12 February 2002, a team of paleontologists led by Professor Peter Doyle (from the English university of Greenwich) announced the discovery of the fossilized vomit of an ichthyosaur .
This strange animal belonged to a group of ancestral marine reptiles, similar to dolphins but with a more pointed snout and paddle-like legs.
The fossil was discovered in a quarry in Peterborough and was dated 160 million years ago. The discovery of belemnite shells in ichthyosaur vomit suggests that the reptile in question has swallowed shell molluscs (belemnites) and then vomited up the shells.
