This discovery prompted scientists to re-study numerous bones unearthed near the village of Aust, in Gloucestershire, England, some dating back to 1850. For a long time, paleontologists thought they were a member or bones from terrestrial dinosaurs, but it didn’t really fit.
Researchers discovered that these bones actually belonged to giant ichthyosaurs, likely larger than the animal that was unearthed in 2016.
“Comparing these bones with those found in Aust, I was shocked,” Dean Lomax said. “I realized it was a giant ichthyosaur and it was the largest animal ever found in the UK.”
For Darren Naish, a paleontologist at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, the size of the bones is surprising, but very real. With a different team, he recently studied the Aust bones and reached the same conclusion, that the bones belong to giant ichthyosaurs.
For him, the size estimates calculated by the authors of the study are correct. He even thinks that these animals “were slightly smaller or larger than certain mysticetes”.
