Gigantic ancient ichthyosaur discovered on UK coast may be the biggest marine reptile in history

The fossilized remains of an ancient 200 million-year-old ichthyosaur unearthed on the coast of southwest England may be some of the largest marine reptiles ever discovered.

In 2020, amateur fossil hunters stumbled upon a huge chunk of bone at Blue Anchor Beach in Somerset. Upon further inspection, dean lomax He and his colleagues at the University of Manchester in England quickly realized that it was a fragment of the jawbone of a giant ichthyosaur, a type of reptile that roamed the oceans between 250 million and 90 million years ago. Noticed.

Subsequent excavations on the beach uncovered 11 more fragments, and the team was able to partially piece together the bone at the back of the jaw, called the mandible.

This latest discovery is A 2018 report describing a similar ichthyosaur jawbone Found on another Somerset beach. At the time, the research team did not have enough evidence to identify the species.

“It was clear that this was another giant jawbone,” Lomax said. “So I was very, very excited.”

After comparing the partial exohorn bone with the complete exoskeleton of other ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the entire bone was at least 2 meters long, meaning the animal was about 20 to 25 meters long.

“We're working on something really huge,” Lomax says. “It would definitely be the largest officially described marine reptile.”

The properties of the exoceratops, which match those reported in 2018, mean both fossils must belong to previously undescribed ichthyosaur species, Lomax said.named by the team Ichthyotitan severnensismeaning giant fish lizard of the River Severn.

The site is about 202 million years old, just before the great global extinction event that wiped out many species, including many giant ichthyosaurs.

“They are quite literally the last giants,” Lomax says. “No ichthyosaur will ever come close to this size again.”