The fossil of a 15 meter (50 ft) long "sea monster" found in Arctic Norway was the biggest of its kind known to science with dagger-like teeth in a mouth large enough to bite a small car, researchers said on Wednesday.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2771508220080228
Remember the story of the coelacanth? The Coelacanth was a species of fish that was thought to have gone exctinct during the Cretaceous period (several million years ago). "Thought to have gone extinct" because in 1938 a fisherman caught a a live coelacanth. However, the coelacanth is clearly not a sea monster. The pliosaur fossil discovered in Norway does represent what could only be described as a sea monster. Here is a thought: If the coelacanth existed long after science had declared it extinct, why not specimens of this pliosaur? Cleary, we would notice one of these giant creatures today and not have to wait for a fisherman to either catch or be caught by a pliosaur. Still, if I recall my history correctly, sailors in the early stages of European exploration, around the 1400s, told tales of sea monsters. Wasn't that the fear of sailing too far from land? (That you would be attacked by a sea monster.) Who knows maybe one day we will discover that a few of these pliosaurs existed as late as 1000 or even 1200 a.d. My choice for the Odd News Award today.
