Nicknamed “The Monster.”

BBC News is raving about the discovery of the largest marine reptile ever to swim on Earth – a creature powerful enough to snap a car in half with its jaws:

The Jurassic-era leviathan is one of 40 sea reptiles from a fossil “treasure trove” uncovered on the island.

Nicknamed “The Monster”, the immense creature would have measured 15m (50ft) from nose to tail.

…

The expedition’s director Dr Jorn Hurum, from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, said the Svalbard specimen is 20% larger than the previous biggest marine reptile – another massive pliosaur from Australia called Kronosaurus.

There are pictures of small children lying next to the bones -and lovely, lurid illustrations of the thing trying to snatch a bird in mid-flight – at the link.

[via]

Entered on 27 February 2008 at 16:39 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? | Print Print

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