Our 5-year-old palaeontologist has been looking at some small fossils we bought on holiday in Dorset. She has decided that there are some small marks on the ichthyosaur vertebra (left) and has matched them up with the fossil shark's tooth (right). 'Ha! Case solved', she declared. 
(The shark's tooth is, it has to be admitted, only about 50m years old, so much younger than the other fossil, but it's not a bad match.) I just thought she might want to consider some other possibilities so tried hard to think of any other possible culprits. Perhaps it was a liopleurodon, I wondered. Or a mosasaur.
(The shark's tooth is, it has to be admitted, only about 50m years old, so much younger than the other fossil, but it's not a bad match.) I just thought she might want to consider some other possibilities so tried hard to think of any other possible culprits. Perhaps it was a liopleurodon, I wondered. Or a mosasaur. 'But Dad', she sighed, 'There were no ichthyosaurs in the Cretaceous!'. Duh!
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