On May 28, 2020, Justin Reynolds and his daughter Ruby, who was 11 at the time, stumbled upon a sizable fragment of an ichthyosaur jawbone while searching for fossils at Blue Anchor in Somerset, England. Over several months, they gathered additional pieces, reconstructing a surangular bone measuring 145 centimeters in length, which is part of the lower jaw of the ichthyosaur. This partial jaw indicated the presence of an enormous marine reptile from the Triassic and Jurassic eras, comparable in dimensions to the blue whale.
The final piece was retrieved on October 16, 2022, by Paul de la Salle, who had previously discovered a similar jawbone. The complete bone, now housed at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, remains incomplete, yet researchers approximated that the full jaw could surpass two meters. By comparing it with other ichthyosaurs, mainly shastasaurids, and utilizing known ratios between the jaw and body lengths, scientists, including Dean Lomax, estimated the ichthyosaur’s length to be between 20 and 26 meters.
This specimen, along with fragments discovered by de la Salle in 2016, contributed to the identification of a new species named Ichthyotitan severnensis, which references the Severn Estuary area where it was found. The fossils are derived from the Westbury Mudstone Formation and date back to the Rhaetian stage of the Late Triassic, approximately 202 million years ago.
The study that was published in PLOS ONE acknowledged six authors, including Justin and Ruby Reynolds. It emphasized the rarity of Rhaetian ichthyosaur fossils and portrayed the period as a difficult one for researching ichthyosaur evolution, given the sparse sedimentary record and its proximity to the end-Triassic mass extinction.
Despite the limited evidence, Lomax and his team conveyed measured optimism, looking forward to further discoveries along the swiftly eroding coastal cliffs of Somerset, regions renowned for yielding ichthyosaur remains for over a century. Ruby Reynolds intends to persist in her search for fossils along these shores, aiding in ongoing scientific investigations into prehistoric marine life.