Part of the research team in 2020 examining the initial finds (at the back) of the new discovery made by Ruby and Justin Reynolds. Additional sections of the bone were subsequently discovered. From left to right, Dr. Dean Lomax, Ruby Reynolds, Justin Reynolds and Paul de la Salle. Credit: Dr. Dean Lomax.
Phys.org has a story about the discovery of what might be the largest marine reptile ever found. A father and daughter, Justin and Ruby Reynolds from Braunton, Devon, found pieces of the jawbone of a huge ichthyosaur that lived about 202 million years ago during the Triassic Period. While hunting fossils on the beach at Blue Anchor, Somerset, Ruby found the first pieces of the fossil jaw. They contacted Dr. Dean Lomax, a paleontologist at The University of Manchester, an ichthyosaur expert. Dr. Lomax described the animal, Ichthyotitan severnensis, in a paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.
Ichthyotitan is not the world's first giant ichthyosaur, but de la Salles' and Reynolds' discoveries are unique among those known to science. These two bones appear roughly 13 million years after their latest geologic relatives, including Shonisaurus sikanniensis from British Columbia, Canada, and Himalayasaurus tibetensis from Tibet, China.
Dr. Lomax added, "I was highly impressed that Ruby and Justin correctly identified the discovery as another enormous jawbone from an ichthyosaur. They recognized that it matched the one we described in 2018. I asked them whether they would like to join my team to study and describe this fossil, including naming it. They jumped at the chance.
"For Ruby, especially, she is now a published scientist who not only found but also helped to name a type of gigantic prehistoric reptile. There are probably not many 15-year-olds who can say that! A Mary Anning in the making, perhaps."
A washed-up Ichthyotitan severnensis carcass on the beach. Credit: Sergey Krasovskiy.
