Researchers have uncovered what may be the largest marine reptile ever to have swam in the world’s waters, according to a recent report by BBC and National Geographic. A creature that was about the length of two buses lived in the sea nearly 202 million years ago during the Triassic period, or the age of dinosaurs. The fossilized jawbone of this massive fish lizard, known as Ichthyotitan severensis, was discovered on a beach in Somerset, UK in 2016 by a fossil hunter. In 2020, a father and daughter found another similar jawbone in the area.
Paleontologist Dean Lomax from the University of Bristol evaluated the fossils and believes they are evidence of two giant fish lizards. Based on the size of their jawbones – one over a meter long and the other two meters long – Lomax estimates that the whole animal was about 25 meters long, which is roughly equivalent to a blue whale. However, more evidence is needed to confirm these estimates, such as finding the entire skeleton and skull of the animal.
The extinct fish lizards were top predators of their time, much like killer whales today. The discovery of these new fossils has strengthened suspicions that there may be new species yet undiscovered among previous giant fish-lizard fossils found in older rocks in Asia and North America. According to paleontologist Neil Kelley, who studied these new fossils at Bristol University, “the late Triassic period is known as a black box for Ichthyosaurian fossil series.”