Isolated and fragmentary ichthyosaur remains were known from Early Cretaceous
strata across Europe,
but many of these fossils could not be precisely identified.
Since 2000, new fossils have been found
and specimens in museum collections have been reevaluated.
They've revealed, that ichthyosaurs from this time,
were more diverse than Paleontologists understood just a decade ago.
New species have been found across Europe, Argentina, Iraq, and Russia.
All the new species belong to the Thunnosauria, and
most of them are closely related to either <i>Ophthalmosaurus</i> or <i>Platypterygius</i>.
Ophthalmosaurs and Platypterygians are also relatively abundant in Canada
from the time when the western interior sea bisected North America.
Two new species of opthalmosaurs
have also been found in Canadian middle Cretaceous strata.
One is <i><b>Athatbascasaurus bitumineus</b></i>,
which was found in an oil sand mine in Northern Alberta.
<i><b>Bitumineus</b></i>, which is a species name, was inspired because this specimen
still has tar, or bitumen, oozing out of its bones.
The other new ophthalmosaur is <i><b>Maiaspondylus lindoei</b></i>.
This specimen was found in the Northwest Territories.
<i>Maiaspondylus</i> means good mother vertebrae
and it refers to the pair of preserved embryos found inside the mother,
near her backbone.
<i>Lindoei</i>, the species name,
is in honour of the University of Alberta technician who discovered the fossils.