World’s Largest Dinosaur Tooth Discovered in Swiss Alps

Berlin – Researchers have found the broken tooth of a rare and mysterious species of giant ichthyosaur, a flesh-eating marine reptile that patrolled the world’s seas during the late Triassic period, about 205 million years ago, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Though the crown of the tooth is partially missing, the fossil fang’s root is twice as wide as any other ichthyosaur tooth known – possibly making the owner of this newly described tooth one of the largest animals ever to live on land or sea.

The previous record-holder for largest tooth was an ichthyosaur measuring nearly 15 meters long.

It is a huge tooth, even for an ichthyosaur, with a root of 60 millimeters in diameter, lead study author P. Martin Sander, of the University of Bonn in Germany, said in a statement.

However, because scientists only have half a tooth to base their research on, it’s impossible to tell whether the ancient marine reptile was a true leviathan, or simply one of many similarly sized sea monsters that ruled the Triassic seas.

In the new study, the researchers analyzed that fossil tooth in detail, along with some large ichthyosaur ribs and vertebrae, all discovered in the Kössen Formation of the Swiss Alps between 1976 and 1990.

The team compared the sampling of bones to other giant ichthyosaur fossils with more complete skeletons, in order to estimate the size and species of the new specimens.