People seem to have stopped fearing ichthyosaurs altogether – now they’re regarded as the first evolutionary attempt at…

People seem to have stopped fearing ichthyosaurs altogether – now they’re regarded as the first evolutionary attempt at creating dolphins. But ichthyosaurs came in many forms – some were very large, very predatory, and very toothy.

The reputation of ichthyosaurs as true monsters can be restored, for example, by the Himalayasaurus, despite its name, found in Tibet in the 1970s (not entirely despite the name, its full name is Himalayasaurus tibetensis) – even present-day Tibet was once the ocean floor. This leviathan reached 15 meters in length and weighed about 35 tons, making it one of the largest predators in the planet’s history.

Recently, they found a relative of the Himalayasaurus, with much smaller teeth, which, nevertheless, managed to bite off the tail of another massive marine reptile and swallowed the rest, somehow managing to eat something about two-thirds of its own size. It seems that the Himalayasaurus could have swallowed an average-sized Tyrannosaurus rex whole, without even biting off the tail! However, it would have been difficult for them to meet – the Himalayasaurus lived in the Triassic period, 215 million years ago, meaning that less time has passed between T. rex and us than between Himalayasaurus and T. rex.

I’m not sure what it was swallowing instead of Tyrannosaurs, but it is believed that this Triassic sea titan was the strongest of all known Mesozoic predators.

@science