Largest ever sea creature discovered by scientists | BBC News
BBC News- 674 views
- 20 Apr 2024
Scientists have identified what they have suspected was probably the largest marine reptile ever to swim in the seas - a creature ...
And we can take a look.
In a garage in Swindon, there is treasure hidden away.
What am I looking at here?
Well, this is the jawbone of a giant ichthyosaur from the end of the Triatic period.
It's what's left of what scientists think was the largest marine reptile on Earth. At 25 meters in length, it was as long as two busses nose to nose.
So this piece of jawbone would have come from an animal around the size of a dolphin. Yeah, indeed. And this piece of jawbone bone is from the giant ichthusaur.
From the giant, indeed.
So you can really see just how big this animal was. You can see the difference.
Paul de La Salle dug the first piece out of a Somerset beach in 2016, and then four years later, with the help of other fossil hunters, he found more. Scientists now say it was a giant ichthyosaur, living alongside the dinosaurs and probably eating squid, and it may have been bigger than a blue whale, the largest animal ever to have lived.
This ichthyosaur lived about 202 million years ago, right at a time where there was a major extinction event. What this major extinction event led to was the eradication, the extinction of these giant ichthyosaurs.
After years in Paul's garage, it's finally time to say goodbye.
I've come to know it almost, studied it in such intense detail that it will be sad to say cheerio to it.
This gigantic ichthyosaur will soon soon go to its new home on public display at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Georgina Rannard, BBC News, Swindon.