By: Eva Huang
In 2020, an 11-year-old, Ruby Reynolds, and her father, Justin Reynolds, were fossil hunting on a beach in Southwestern England when they found a huge fossilized bone. Through research, they found out that the bone was part of an ichthyosaur, the largest known dolphin-alligator-like marine reptile that existed 202 million years ago!
The bone was just 50 miles away from where Mary Anning, a 12-year-old girl, first found a bone of an ichthyosaur in 1811.
Ruby and her father brought home the fossil and started their research. Ruby eventually found another ichthyosaur bone at the beach, where she first discovered the reptile fossil! Ruby and her father hinted that the fossil fragments were actually an ichthyosaur from a paper. According to the New York Times, “A 2018 paper provided a hint at what they’d [Ruby and Justin Reynolds] found: In nearby Lilstock, fossil hunters had discovered similar bone fragments, hypothesized to be part of the jaw bone of a massive ichthyosaur that lived roughly 202 million years ago.”
Ruby’s father contacted two fossil finders/researchers, Dean Lomax and Paul de la Salle, who were part of the 2018 paper. They found similar bone fragments in Lilstock but couldn’t classify that it belonged to the ichthyosaur species due to the lack of evidence. Ruby, her dad, Paul, and Dr. Lomax would regularly go to the site to try to find more of the body. Later on, Marcello Perillo, a paleontologist, helped confirm that it was an ichthyosaur!
Dr. Lomax wrote a paper in PLOS One, a journal, describing how the fossil looked and its characteristics. According to the New York Times, “Their [Dr. Paul Lomax and his co-authors] estimates suggest Ichthyotitan could have been up to 82 feet long, rivaling the size of a blue whale and making it the largest marine reptile known to science.”
Ruby Reynolds said that she didn’t realize that when she first found a piece of the ichthyosaur, she didn’t realize how important it would become. She also added that it is important for young people to enjoy science and the journey of exploring because you never know where a discovery may take you!