Oldest 'fish-lizard' fossils ever found suggests these sea monsters survived the 'Great Dying'

Ancient "fish-lizards" were swimming around in Earth's oceans 250 million years ago, long before scientists thought they first emerged, a new study finds. 
Researchers discovered the fossilized remains of an ichthyosaur on Spitsbergen, a remote Arctic island in the Svalbard archipelago in Norway in 2014. Ichthyosaurs are an extinct, fish-like lizard whose body shape resembled that of modern-day dolphins and toothed whales. The remains, which consist of 11 tail vertebrae, were trapped within a limestone boulder that dated to the early Triassic period, which makes the fossils the oldest ichthyosaur remains ever uncovered and the oldest evidence of marine reptiles.
Scientists previously assumed that ichthyosaurs had emerged along with all other marine reptiles after the Permian mass extinction event, also known as the "Great Dying," which occurred around 251.9 million years ago and wiped out around 90% percent of all life on Earth at the time. Until now, the oldest-known marine reptile fossils belonged to smaller and less aquatically advanced groups and dated to 249 million years ago, which suggested that marine reptiles had emerged shortly after the destructive event.
Oldest 'fish-lizard' fossils ever found suggests these sea monsters survived the 'Great Dying'