Giant reptile was big as a blue whale and lived around 200 million years ago
A fossil find by an young girl has led to the discovery of what may have been the world's largest-ever sea reptile. Ruby Reynolds, then 11, and her father Justin uncovered the first pieces of the giant creature's jaw on a beach in May 2020.
They estimate the ichthyosaur would have been more than 25m long, around the size of a blue whale, making it possibly the largest marine reptile ever recorded. It lived around 200 millions years ago during the Triassic Period when ichthyosaurs swam the seas while the dinosaurs walked on land .Ruby, who found the fossil on the beach at Blue Anchor, Somerset, said: "It was so cool to discover part of this gigantic ichthyosaur.
After making the discovery they contacted Dr Dean Lomax, a palaeontologist at The University of Manchester, who then got in touch with Paul de la Salle, a fossil collector who had found the first giant jawbone in May 2016 further along the coast at Lilstock.
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