Uncovering the Secrets of Gigantic Prehistoric Sea Creatures.

University of Portsmouth paleontologists have published a paper on a pliosaur species that could have grown up to 14.4 meters long, twice the size of a killer whale. The discovery was made after a chance finding of four enormous vertebrates in an Oxfordshire museum. Pliosaurs were at the top of the marine food chain and probably preyed on ichthyosaurs, long-necked plesiosaurs, and smaller marine crocodiles. The vertebrae were originally discovered during temporary excavations at Warren Farm in the River Thames Valley in Oxfordshire and come from the Kimmeridge Clay Formation, which is Late Jurassic in age, around 152 million years old.