Discovery of the "largest marine creature ever observed" in the UK

In 2020, a father and his daughter were strolling calmly along the beach in Somerset, England, when they discovered an impressive creature…

Justin Reynolds and his daughter Ruby unearthed a gigantic fossil; the jaw of the largest marine reptile ever identified. They entrusted this discovery to the palaeontologist at the University of Manchester, Dean Lomax.

According to a study published on April 17th, the collector Paul de la Salle had already discovered a similar fossil in 2016, on this same British coast, reports the media Demotivateur. Two fossils belonging to a marine reptile called the “ichthyosaur”, which lived on Earth 202 million years ago.

When dinosaurs roamed in the UK

“It's quite remarkable to imagine that gigantic ichthyosaurs, the size of a blue whale, navigated the oceans at a time when dinosaurs roamed the land in what is today the United Kingdom, during the Triassic period,” notes Dean Lomax.

The ichthyosaur rivals the largest mammals of our era, among which the blue whale is considered the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth. Its size, up to 26 metres long, distinguishes the ichthyosaur from other creatures.

(MH with Raphaël Liset - Source: Demotivateur - Illustration: ©Unsplash)