Omphalosaurus

Since the genus was first named from fossils in Nevada,‭ ‬USA,‭ ‬Omphalosaurus was usually perceived as a small and primitive ichthyosaur that lived during the early Triassic.‭ ‬Towards the end of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries however questions were raised about the genus being an ichthyosaur with notes about how the known fossils of Omphalosaurus don’t show any feature that are exclusive just to the ichthyosaurs.‭ ‬Most of this doubt was highlighted in a paper by Motani and published in‭ ‬2000,‭ ‬however since this papers by Sander and Faber in‭ ‬2003,‭ ‬and Maisch in‭ ‬2010,‭ ‬both describing new specimens of Omphalosaurus,‭ ‬have concluded that Omphalosaurus is a primitive ichthyosaur. One thing that we can be a little more certain about Omphalosaurus is the diet.‭ ‬The teeth of Omphalosaurus are blunt and rounded,‭ ‬and usually these kinds of teeth are seen in animals that eat hard bodied items.‭ ‬In reference to Omphalosaurus specifically this would be shellfish which would have had their hard outer shells broken up by the teeth so that the soft inside could then be swallowed by the feeding‭ ‬Omphalosaurus.