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]