Experts have announced that a fossil found on a beach in the Bristol Channel is the giant jawbone of a new species of enormous dinosaur, which could be the largest ever marine reptile found in Britain.
The fossil is more than two metres long and, incredibly, has been identified by experts from Bristol University as the jawbone of a creature so big it would have been more than 25 metres long.
It was found in the eroding cliffs at Blue Anchor on the Bristol Channel coast in Somerset by a father and daughter from Braunton in Devon called Justin and Ruby Reynolds - and is the culmination of an eight year long mission that was part treasure hunt and part giant prehistoric jigsaw puzzle.
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The first piece of the jaw of this giant creature was found in May 2016 further along the coast at Lilstock by a seasoned fossil collector called Paul de la Salle. Its discovery was tantalising - because the experts new it meant there might be more of the fossilised remains of other examples of the creature nearby. Sure enough, in May 2020, Justin Reynolds and his daughter Ruby, who was just 11 at the time, found the first chunk of giant bone at Blue Anchor. Together they searched the area and found additional pieces.
Finally, the last piece to complete the jigsaw was found by Ruby in October 2022, and now, for the first time, the experts at Bristol University have been able to piece it all together and formally identify it as a new species of gigantic ichthyosaur, a marine reptile that could have been 25 metres long - the length of two double deckers, one behind the other - that once swam in the seas of what ended up becoming the Bristol Channel, millions of years ago.
Justin and Ruby first took their find to Dr Dean Lomax, an 1851 Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, who is one of the world’s leading experts in ichthyosaurs. He got back in touch with Paul de Salle, and together with the university team, they began piecing together what he described as a ‘very exciting’ discovery.
““I was amazed by the find,” he said. “In 2018, my team, including Paul de la Salle, studied and described Paul’s giant jawbone and we had hoped that one day another would come to light.
“This new specimen is more complete, better preserved, and shows that we now have two of these giant bones (called a surangular) that have a unique shape and structure. I became very excited, to say the least,” he added.
Thinking they might have found something new, the University team, along with Paul, family members and Justin and Ruby, kept going back out to Blue Anchor to see if they could find more - and they did, and were able to fit all the pieces together.
“When Ruby and I found the first two pieces we were very excited as we realised that this was something important and unusual,” said proud father Justin. “When I found the back part of the jaw, I was thrilled because that is one of the defining parts of Paul's earlier discovery.”
The last piece of bone was recovered in October 2022, and now the discovery has been verified and reviewed and confirmed as a new species of ichthyosaur - because two different creatures have been found close to each other that are different to previous discoveries. They’ve named it ichthyosaur severnensis - which means ‘giant fish lizard of the River Severn’.
The creature would have swum around about 202 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic Period - the giant ichthyosaur would have swum around in the seas at the same time as dinosaurs walked the land. The layer of fossils in which the giant Severn lizard was found reveal something else too - the rocks above record a global catastrophe known as the Late Triassic global mass extinction event - something happened that made lots of dinosaurs, including giant ichthyosaurs from this period, go extinct.
“Today, these bones represent the very last of their kind,” said a spokesperson for the University of Bristol. “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,” he added.
Dr Lomax said he was impressed that the father and daughter realised what they had found when they found it, and new there would be more to discover. “I was highly impressed that Ruby and Justin correctly identified the discovery as another enormous jawbone from an ichthyosaur. They recognised that it matched the one we described in 2018,” he said.
“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,” Dr Lomax added.
Now 15, Ruby said she was pleased to have discovered a new kind of ichthyosaur. “It was so cool to discover part of this gigantic ichthyosaur,” she said. “I am very proud to have played a part in a scientific discovery like this.”
To get confirmation this is the discovery of a new kind of ichthyosaur, the Bristol team got researchers from all over the world to do the science. Marcello Perillo, from the University of Bonn in Germany, took core samples from the new bones, examined internal structures and confirmed the ichthyosaur origin - his research found the animal was still growing when it died.
Meanwhile, a researcher from a museum in Orlando in Florida, got involved too. “Every fossil fan dreams of an experience like Ruby’s – and she deserves all the joy and excitement,” said Jimmy Waldron, from the DWABA Museum.
“To be the first human eyes to look upon this incredible fossil after 202 million years is truly special. Justin is setting a grand example by supporting his daughter’s interests in science and palaeontology. Fossils like Ichthyotitan offer glimpses into unknown chapters of life on Earth, and it’s our responsibility to share these wonders and the processes with the public,” he added.
Dr Lomax said there could be more to be found. “This research has been ongoing for almost eight years. It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around what was the UK during the Triassic Period,” he said.
“These jawbones provide tantalising evidence that perhaps one day a complete skull or skeleton of one of these giants might be found. You never know,” he added.
