Sea reptile biggest on record

A fossilized "sea monster" discovered on an Arctic island is the largest marine reptile known to science Norwegian scientists have announced.

The 150 million-year-old specimen was found on Spitspergen, in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard, in 2006.

The Jurassic-era leviathan is one of 40 sea reptiles from a fossil "treasure trove" uncovered on the island

The reptile Nicknamed The Monster measured 15m from head to toe.  

During the last expedition the scientist’s found another matching species which they think is the same as the monster and may be just as big

The expedition's director Dr Jorn Hurum, from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, said the Svalbard specimen is 20% larger than the previous biggest marine reptile - another massive pliosaur from Australia called Kronosaurus.

Dr. Jorn Hurum told the BBC News website that “ we have studied the literature closely and we have the biggest pliosaur, its not just arm waving on more.”

The flipper off the monster is 3m long in amazing condition.
Pliosaurs were a short-necked form of plesiosaur, a group of extinct reptiles that lived in the world's oceans during the age of the dinosaurs.
A pliosaur's body was tear drop-shaped with two sets of powerful flippers which it used to propel itself through the water.
"These animals were awesomely powerful predators," said plesiosaur palaeontologist Richard Forrest.
If you compare the skull of a large pliosaur to a crocodile, it is very clear it is much better built for biting... by comparison with a crocodile, you have something like three or four times the cross-sectional space for muscles. So you have much bigger, more powerful muscles and huge, robust jaws.
"A large pliosaur was big enough to pick up a small car in its jaws and bite it in half."
The Monster was excavated in August 2007 and taken to the Natural History Museum in Oslo. Team members had to remove hundreds of tonnes of rock by hand in high winds, fog, rain, freezing temperatures and with the constant threat of attack by polar bears.
They recovered the animal's snout, some teeth, much of the neck and back, the shoulder girdle and a nearly complete flipper.
Unfortunately, there was a small river running through where the head lay, so much of the skull had been washed away.

A preliminary analysis of the bones suggests this beast belongs to a previously unknown species.
Unprecedented haul
The researchers plan to return to Svalbard later this year to excavate the new pliosaur.
A few skull pieces, broken teeth and vertebrae from this second large specimen are already exposed and plenty more may be waiting to be excavated.

"It's a large one, and has the same bone structure as the previous one we found," said Espen Knutsen, from Oslo's Natural History Museum, who is studying the fossils.
Dr Hurum and his colleagues have now identified a total of 40 marine reptiles from Svalbard. The haul includes many long-necked plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs in addition to the two pliosaurs.