Science Daily has news of a child — child! — of 11 who discovered the fossilized bones, during a seaside walk in England, of a very big sea creature. It probably measured about 25 meters from snout to tail, or about 82 feet. That’s two school buses end to end. It might just have been the largest marine reptile ever to swim the primordial seas, and potentially even the largest animal with a skeleton full stop:
Father and daughter, Justin and Ruby Reynolds from Braunton, Devon, found the first pieces of the second jawbone to be found in May 2020, while searching for fossils on the beach at Blue Anchor, Somerset. Ruby, then aged 11, found the first chunk of giant bone before searching together for additional pieces.
Realising they had discovered something significant, they contacted leading ichthyosaur expert, Dr Dean Lomax, a palaeontologist at The University of Manchester. Dr Lomax, who is also a 1851 Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, contacted Paul de la Salle, a seasoned fossil collector who had found the first giant jawbone in May 2016 from further along the coast at Lilstock.
Dr Dean Lomax said: “I was amazed by the find. In 2018, my team (including Paul de la Salle) studied and described Paul’s giant jawbone and we had hoped that one day another would come to light. This new specimen is more complete, better preserved, and shows that we now have two of these giant bones — called a surangular — that have a unique shape and structure. I became very excited, to say the least.”
Justin and Ruby, together with Paul, Dr Lomax, and several family members, visited the site to hunt for more pieces of this rare discovery. Over time, the team found additional pieces of the same jaw which fit together perfectly, like a multimillion-year-old jigsaw.
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The team have called the new genus and species Ichthyotitan severnensis, meaning “giant fish lizard of the Severn.”
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Further examinations of the bones’ internal structures have been carried out by master’s student, Marcello Perillo, from the University of Bonn, Germany. His work confirmed the ichthyosaur origin of the bones and revealed that the animal was still growing at the time of death.
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You can read more of the giant ichthyosaur research here, in PLOS One. and photos of the discoverers (with paintings of the big beast) here, at CNN.