According to experts, the fossil discovered by an 11-year-old girl on a beach in Somerset, England, may belong to an ichthyosaur, the largest marine reptile that ever existed.
Ichthyosaurs lived during the age of dinosaurs. To date, science has identified over 100 species of ichthyosaurs.
Ichthyosaurs were one of the dominant marine predators during the Mesozoic era – (Photo: Sergey Krasovskiy).
This newly discovered species is believed to have roamed the seas during the late Triassic period, around 202 million years ago. Additionally, the research team believes that this is not just a new species but also an entirely new genus of ichthyosaurs.
The research team named this species Ichthyotitan severnensis, meaning “giant ichthyosaur of Severn”, after the Severn River estuary where it was found.
Dr. Dean Lomax, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol and co-author of the study, stated that this giant fossil likely represents the largest marine reptile ever officially described.
Comparisons with fossils of other ichthyosaur species indicate that this creature measured approximately 25 meters in length, comparable to the size of a blue whale.
The sediments within these specimens contain types of rock that suggest earthquakes and tsunamis occurred during that time. This indicates that this species lived during a period of intense volcanic activity that could have led to a major extinction event at the end of the Triassic, according to the researchers.
Their study was published in the journal Plos One on April 17.
From left to right: Dean Lomax, Ruby Reynolds, Justin Reynolds, and Paul de la Salle studying the fossil specimen of the giant ichthyosaur – (Photo: Dean Lomax)
Ichthyosaurs were among the dominant marine predators during the Mesozoic era, from 251.9 million to 66 million years ago. They reached gigantic sizes early in the Mesozoic, but the largest species did not appear until the late Triassic.
While the Mesozoic is known as the age of dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs were not dinosaurs. Instead, they evolved from a different group of reptiles. Their evolutionary path closely reflects that of whales, which evolved from land mammals and then returned to the sea. Like whales, they breathed air and gave live birth.
