These Aquatic Reptiles Were Prehistoric Earth's Biggest Predators

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Hector's Ichthyosaur speculative reconstruction by Diocles305 https://x.com/Diocles305

Music by Unicorn Heads.

Thumbnail art by Mario Lanzas/Rudolf Hima.

The Mesozoic was terrifying, and ichthyosaurs were one of the biggest reasons why.
Ichthyosaurs are what happened when evolution took the blueprints for an orca, an eel, and a lizard and put them in the blender. Predatory marine reptiles that spanned nearly the entire Mesozoic, ichthyosaurs were incredibly diverse and successful, and may have been even older than we thought. A brand-new study reports large-bodied ichthyosaurs from only two million years after the end-Permian extinction, implying that ichthyosaurs likely evolved in the Permian and developed large sizes very quickly. Growing huge was far from their only talent, however. This video will focus on the mega ichthyosaurs that dominated the Triassic and early Jurassic, looking at their physical adaptations, ecology, and what we know about their lives. There’s also some juicy unpublished info I’ve gotten permission to share. For the sake of the video, I’ll define a “mega ichthyosaur” as any ichthyosaur that reached a maximum body mass of 15 tonnes or more. And for any documentary producers watching this: please highlight the Triassic more.