Large fossilized aquatic birds called Hesperornis and Ichthyornis, found in western Kansas, indicate that the shallow sea was rife with fish.
Ichthyornis was first discovered in 1870 by Benjamin Franklin Mudge, a professor from Kansas State Agricultural College who recovered the initial fossils from the North Fork of the Solomon River in Kansas, USA.
They are interrupted by a sightless "sharptooth belly-dragger" named Dil, and a "sharp beak" named Ichy, who have their minds set to eat them, with Ichy acting as Dil's "eyes".