Dino card No. 0961 of 2,015

Khudiakovia

Say it: KOO-dee-ah-KOH-vee-ah

Ate: MeatIchthyosaursEarly Jurassic to Early CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Khudiakovia was a fast-swimming marine reptile that lived in the oceans during the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods. It had a huge eye, a long snout, and a body shaped like a dolphin. It was not a dinosaur, but a type of ichthyosaur.1

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

201 to 133 million years ago2

Early Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Russia (Saratov region)1

Food

Meat1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Khudiakovia had an enormous eye, which helped it see in the dark ocean depths. The eye socket was very large compared to its skull.1

Its bones were made of hydroxyapatite, the same mineral that makes your teeth and bones hard.1

Khudiakovia gave birth to live young, just like whales and dolphins do today. It did not lay eggs.1

This ichthyosaur lived from about 201 million years ago to about 132 million years ago, a span of nearly 70 million years.1

Khudiakovia was a fast swimmer that moved through the water like a fish. Its body was built for speed.1

AI-made picture of Khudiakovia — An AI-made picture of how Khudiakovia might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

For dino experts

Scientific name: Khudiakovia
Named by: Arkhangelsky 19992
Group: Ichthyosaurs
Family / clade: Ophthalmosauridae2
Classification: Ichthyosauria > Ichthyosauromorpha2
Age of the rocks: 201 to 133 million years (Hettangian to Valanginian)2
Countries: Russia2
Fossil records: 27 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Khudiakovia was named by Russian paleontologist Arkhangelsky in 1999. The first fossils were found in the Saratov region of Russia.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Khudiakovia is a valid genus. Some researchers think it might be the same animal as Ophthalmosaurus.1

Where the facts come from

PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Khudiakovia in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.