This is scientific American 60 second science.

I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

Long before dolphins swam the seas,

their near look-like ichthyosaurs

inhabited the Earth's oceans.

Now scientists say those ancient seafaring reptiles may have had more in common with modern day

sea turtles and marine mammals than we knew.

Over time a dead animal's bones can be slowly replaced by minerals, leaving behind a rocky fossil.

The researchers demineralize the 180 million-year-old fossil of an ichthyosaur, and it left behind soft flexible tissues.

Which is kind of amazing.

U-Huhan Lindigrain, a paleontologist at Looned University in Sweden.

It turns out that the skin is still there with cells and cellular organelles and even traces of the original biomolecular makeup.

Those remains revealed that the ichthyosaurus sport sported camouflage appropriate for its underwater environment.

Light on the bottom, darker on top, just like many marine animals have today.

The researchers also found a black glossy substance that was harder to identify.

So they collected dead sea turtles and porpoises and mimicked fossilization by heating and

squashing the creature's skin, which led them to realize that the darker substance in the ichthyosaur

fossil must be blubber.

So from having blubber, we can say that to some extent the ichthyos, it must have been

warm-blooded, so to say at least to the same degree as the modern

letterback turtle.

The right up and photos of the fossil are in the journal nature.

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