In May 2020 while searching for fossils on a beach in Devon, southwest England, A father and an 11-year-old daughter found remains of a 2-meter jaw that turned out to be similar to others found in 2016 and belong to a new type of marine reptile, the largest known so far.
Eight years of work by researchers from the University of Bristol and of the University of Manchester have ended with the description a species unknown until now, which they have named giant ichthyosaur ('Ichthyotitan severnensis')what does it mean “giant fish lizard” due to its size of more than 25 meters.
a giant dolphin
The discovery, collected this Wednesday in the Plos One magazinetalks about a species similar in appearance to today's dolphins, but in a giant version -twice the size of a normal city bus- that lived in the Upper Triassic, in a time known as the Rhaetian.
Analysis of the internal structures of the bones of the last jaw found has confirmed that they belong to an ichthyosaur and revealed that the animal was still growing at the time of its death.
The bones date specifically from 202 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic period.when gigantic ichthyosaurs swam the seas while dinosaurs walked the land.
Although other species of ichthyosaurs continued to inhabit the oceans for more years, researchers believe that Its most giant version became extinct during the Triassic-Jurassic period 200 million years ago.and this unique group of marine reptiles never again reached such a large size, which is also similar to that of a blue whale.
The rocks in which the fossils have been found indicate “that a cataclysm would have caused a Late Triassic global mass extinction, which would have wiped out these giant marine reptiles”.
These two bones appear 13 million years after its more recent geological relatives, Shonisaurus sikanniensis of British Columbia (Canada) and Himalayasaurus tibetensis of Tibet (China).
The discovery
The first jaw remains of a giant ichthyosaur They were found in 2016 near Lilstock beach, southwest Englandby researcher Paul de la Salle, and described in 2018 in research led by paleontologist expert in ichthyosaurs, Dean Lomax, from the University of Manchester, also author of the present study.
In 2020, while visiting the site, Justin Reynolds and his daughter Rubi, 11, discovered remains of a new jawbone on Brauton beacha nearby town of Lilstock, where the first was found.
“In 2018 my team had described the giant jaw found by Paul de La Salle in 2016, and we 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 surangulars- that have a unique shape and structure,” explains Lomax.
The paleontologist admits that he was very surprised that Justin and his daughter Rubi “recognized that the jaw found coincided with the one found in 2016” and contacted him.
Young researcher
“I asked them if they would like to join my team to study and describe this fossil, including naming it, and they jumped at the opportunity,” Lomax said.
Rubi, who is now 15 years old, is one of the authors of the present study: “She is a potential Mary Anning“, says Lomax in reference to the 19th century British paleontologistauthor of important discoveries on the seabeds of the Jurassic period.
“These jaws are tantalizing evidence that one day we may find a skull or complete skeleton of one of these giants. You never know”, concludes Lomax.
The fossil remains of the new giant marine reptile will soon be exhibited at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.