Fossilised remains of a fish that grew as big as a great white shark and the largest of its type ever found have been discovered by accident.
The new discovery by scientists from the University of Portsmouth is a species of the so-called ‘living fossil’ coelacanths which still swim in the seas, surviving the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs.
The discovery was purely serendipitous. Professor David Martill, a palaeontologist from the University’s School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, had been asked to identify a large bone in a private collection in London.
Image: IMAGE: AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT A COMPLETE FISH FOSSIL COELACANTH LOOKS LIKE. THIS ONE IS FROM THE JURASSIC OF GERMAN. view more CREDIT: PROFESSOR DAVID MARTILL, UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH