So, get this—a young girl and her dad stumbled upon this ancient fossil while chillin' on a beach in England. And guess what? It's from this super-sized creature that might have been one of the biggest animals ever on Earth!
Scientists recently spilled the deets in a study, sayin' that this fossilized bone, called a surangular, is from a sea creature called an ichthyosaur. These guys were like massive reptiles that lived in the ocean, and based on this bone's size compared to others from similar ichthyosaurs, they figured this beast was somewhere between 22 and 26 meters long. They even gave it a cool name: Ichthyotitan severnensis.
Now, wrap your head around this—it could be the largest marine reptile ever known! Like, think about it—its size would be right up there with the biggest whales we have today. You know, like the blue whale, which is like the biggest animal to have ever lived, reaching about 30 meters long.
These marine reptiles were hanging out in the oceans way back when dinosaurs were strutting their stuff on land. Ichthyosaurs went extinct about 90 million years ago, but back in the day, they came in all sorts of sizes and were chowing down on fish and other sea goodies.
Check out this pic of the nearly complete fossilized jawbone of Ichthyotitan severnensis. It's shown alongside another fossilized bone found by a guy named Paul de la Salle. Pretty rad, huh?
So, here's the scoop—Ruby Reynolds and her dad Justin Reynolds found one of these bones back in 2020 at Blue Anchor in Somerset. Then, this other bone, from a different Ichthyotitan homie, was found in 2016 along the Somerset coast at Lilstock.
This dude Dean Lomax was the head honcho of the study, and he's all about these ancient sea creatures. He said, "It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around the time that dinosaurs were walking on land in what is now the UK (Britain) during the Triassic Period.”
And get this, Ruby was just 11 when she and her pops found that fossil bone. She kept on digging around and found another piece, which turned out to be way bigger than the first one. They hooked up with Lomax, who's an ichthyosaur expert, and they uncovered more of the bone.
People are giving Ruby major props, comparing her to this rockstar fossil hunter from back in the 1800s named Mary Anning. She was only 12 when she started discovering these kinds of fossils!
Ruby's dad Justin is all stoked too. He said, "It has been an amazing...and fun experience to work with these experts, and we are proud to be part of the team and co-authors of a scientific paper which names a new species and genus.”
So yeah, this giant ocean reptile, part of a family called Shastasauridae, was hanging around in the sea millions of years ago. It's a wild reminder of how big and diverse our planet's been throughout history. It's moments like these that make you stop and feel small in the grand scheme of things, ya know?