To find out more, I've come to the
Natural History Museum of Stuttgart in Germany.
Here, they have one of the most
impressive and varied collections of
ichthyosaurs in the world.
They came in all shapes and sizes but of
all the ichthyosaurs that existed
200 million years ago, there was one which was particularly fearsome.
This is Temnodontosaurus, one of the
biggest of the sea dragons so far discovered.
They grew up to 10 meters
long and individual bones have been
discovered which suggests that they
could grow even bigger than that.
The remains of these terrifying sea monsters were discovered in a quarry just outside
Stuttgart. These are the biggest complete
temnodontosaurus fossils ever found.
This huge predator had the largest eye
known of any animal, which would have
given it extremely acute eyesight. Not
only that, but the eye was surrounded by a
ring of scutes - bony plates - to protect it
from the water pressure at depth.
So with eyes the size of footballs, this monster was able to hunt at all depths of the Jurassic ocean.
It also had rows of sharp teeth that
would have allowed it to rip apart almost anything.
These teeth are shaped like blades, well-suited for cutting into flesh.
And here's another specimen of
temnodontosaurus that is proof
positive that it really was a hunter.
Here is its stomach and inside its
stomach you can see these tiny little
circular bones, which are the backbones,
the vertebrae of a baby ichthyosaur.
So we now know that temnodontosaurus could devour young ichthyosaurs,
but would one have been capable of eating an adult ichthyosaur, like ours?
Fossils of temnodontosaurus have been found in other regions,
including the Jurassic Coast.
So this monster could well be our prime
suspect.
