00:03Back in 2016, a fossil was found on a beach in the UK, one researchers believed was unusual,
00:09because the animal that once possessed it would have had to be huge.
00:12Then in 2020, while walking along a beach in Somerset in the UK,
00:1611-year-old Ruby Reynolds and her father Justin Reynolds discovered another part of a jaw which
00:21likely belonged to the same creature. Now experts say those fossils likely belonged
00:25to the ichthyotitan Severnensis, a marine reptile that swam around the ocean some 202 million years ago.
00:32Paleontologists say the behemoths swam around the United Kingdom in the Triassic period.
00:36No other marine reptiles, and you can include turtles and crocodiles,
00:41no other marine reptiles got as large as these animals did.
00:45That's Dean Lomax, lead author on the recently published study naming the new creature.
00:50He says that it likely would have grown to a length of up to 85 feet,
00:53making it the largest reptile to have ever lived.
00:56For reference, the blue whale, the largest creature in history as far as we know,
00:59can reach lengths of 100 feet.
01:01What's more, Lomax adds that this creature is also the last to be dated within its family,
01:06meaning it lived 13 million years later than any others of its kind.
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