Thanks to a very patient British fossil hunter, the business end of a Pliosaur, including much of the skull and jaw, has been collected from the southern shores of England. What’s the big deal? Pliosaurs were genuine sea monsters, and the specimen Kevin Sheehan discovered is the largest Pliosaur ever found.

These gargantuan marine reptiles flourished during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, disappearing during the cataclysmic event that swept away the reptilian mega-fauna about 65 million years ago. They were related to the elegantly-shaped Plesiosaurs, of which the Loch Ness monster was thought by its proponents to be an example. The Plesiosaur, with its long neck and relatively small head, probably ate fish. The Pliosaur ate Plesiosaurs, or practically anything else that looked appetizing.

Sheehan’s example is the largest sea-going reptile ever found. It eclipsed in size ‘Predator X,’ the former champ, which had been unearthed in Svalbard, a Norwegian arctic island. That fossil is also a Pliosaur.

Unlike the depictions of sea monsters produced in the 17th through 19th centuries, which were embellished with horns, spikes, tentacles or other appendages of questionable utility, the Pliosaur’s physiognomy was simple and deadly. Like the smaller Plesiosaur, it was endowed with a set of four ‘paddles’ that propelled it through the water, but there the resemblance ends. The Pliosaur had a short neck and a very large, elongated head, somewhat like a crocodile. Its huge, strong jaws were festooned with razor-sharp teeth, a single bite from which could kill or maim the smaller meat-eaters upon which it prayed.

The skull of Sheehan’s Pliosaur measures 7’8” in length. Paleontologists have estimated that the creature was about 65’ long and weighed 12 tons. Those dimensions would have placed it at the pinnacle of the food chain in the ancient oceans.

Richard Forrest, paleontologist and Plesiosaur expert, said that compared to the Pliosaur, T. Rex was “a kitten.” Something like a T. Rex would have been breakfast for this beast he said. This Pliosaur would have taken a human in one gulp, and could have bitten a car in half. In an era when bigger was better, the Pliosaurs were kings of the sea.