Temnodontosaurus (Greek for “cutting-tooth lizard” - temno, meaning “to cut”, odont meaning “tooth” and sauros meaning “lizard”) is an extinct genus of ichthyosaur from the Early Jurassic period. It lived between 200 and 175 million years ago (Hettangian - Toarcian), and lived in what is now Europe (England, France, Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium) and Chile. They lived in the deeper areas of the open ocean. University of Bristol paleontologist Jeremy Martin described the genus Temnodontosaurus as “one of the most ecologically disparate genera of ichthyosaurs”.