Found on a British beach, jawbone of 85ft sea monster from 205m years ago
A JAWBONE found on a British beach is 205million years old and belonged to one of the biggest animals that ever lived, say scientists.
It came from an ichthyosaur which could have been more than 85 feet from head to tail – easily the largest of its kind ever found and approaching the size of a blue whale.
The ichthyosaur – Greek for fish lizard – was a marine reptile which first appeared around 250million years ago, 20million years before dinosaurs. It became extinct 90million years ago.
The jawbone was dug up at Lilstock, Somerset, by fossil collector Paul de la Salle who later found more pieces that together measured about 3ft 3in in
length. Experts then compared the find to the biggest ichthyosaur found up to now which is 69ft long.
Palaeontologist Dean Lomax of Manchester University said it was difficult to be sure of the size, but added: ‘By using a simple scaling factor and comparing the same bone the Lilstock specimen is about 25 per cent larger.’ The discovery was described in the journal PLOS One.