Colossal Sea Monster!! O Noes!!

With powerful jaws, like steel girders in strength,
The biggest uncovered thus far,
At 2.4 meters of bone-crushing length
These jaws could bite clean through a car
With a gullet, we’re told, that could swallow a cow,
Next to this boy, T. rex is a kitten!
The biggest of fishes are Pliosaur chow—
When it bites you, you know you’ve been bitten!

For millions and millions of years, it’s been dead,
But it’s back for a visit, it seems—
Please excuse me—I’m going to go hide in my bed,
And hope we don’t meet in my dreams!


The Beeb reports on a gorgeous fossil skull, ten years in the collecting (as the cliff it was imbedded in slowly eroded), of an immense oceanic carnivore, a Pliosaur (with video... which I cannot, apparently, link directly, but which is very cool and worth visiting!).

The pleiosaur expert says a few things which get your attention--this creature could have bitten a small car in half, for instance, which I think probably explains the lack of automobiles in the fossil record. He says that Pliosaur could have swallowed T. rex in one gulp... which I suspect was hyperbole, but just in case, I'm planning on never swimming in the ocean again.