JAW-DROPPING!
Bones of largest marine reptile found in Somerset
IT is best known for Glastonbury, cheddar cheese and cider. But Somerset now has a new claim to fame – as its coastline was once home to the largest species of marine reptile ever to be discovered.
Experts have revealed a huge ichthyosaur, around twice the size of a bus, prowled the waters off the county’s coast 200 million years ago.
Archaeologists from the University of Bristol and the University of Manchester have spent the past few years piecing together fragments of a jawbone unearthed in the Westbury Mudstone Formation. The new bone was similar in size and shape to another jawbone collected from the same rock formation just a few miles away.
Together, they now believe these two bones belong to a previously undescribed species of ichthyosaur — a group of massive, ocean-dwelling reptiles from the age of the dinosaurs.
Based on the length of these bones, the new species, named Ichthyotitan severnensis, may have been a whopping 25 metres (82 feet) long — twice the length of a London bus.
Ichthyosaurs, many of which looked like modern-day dolphins, evolved during the early Triassic period around 250 million years ago. They were distant relatives of lizards and snakes and were able to move through the water at very high speeds. Armed with long, thin jaws containing sharp teeth, their prey included octopus, squid and cuttlefish.
Within a few million years, some had evolved to reach 15 metres long. Dr Dean Lomax, who led the study, said: ‘ It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale- sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around what was the UK during the Triassic Period. These jawbones provide tantalising evidence that perhaps one day a complete skull or skeleton of one of these giants might be found.’
The findings were published in the journal Plos One.