Remarkable fossil of 180-million-year-old 'sea monster' preserved its Jurassic-era blubber and skin

Scientists have identified an extraordinary specimen of fossilized blubber from a ‘fish-lizard’ that lived 180 million years ago, according to a new report in the journal Nature. The blubber, a layer of fat beneath the skin of modern marine mammals that helps them preserve heat, indicates that the ancient 'sea monster' was warm-blooded, an unusual quality in a reptile, according to the report's authors. The Jurassic-era sea creature, called an ichthyosaur, appears to have shared qualities of both a mammal and a reptile, according to Johan Lindgren, a senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden.