The gill rakers were so big, in fact, that they have sometimes been confused as the bones of other prehistoric animals, such as the jaw of a leathery-winged pterosaur.Ĭiting the large "gill basket" and other fossils attributed to the creature, paleontologist David Martill in 1986 dubbed Leedsichthys "the world's largest fish." He estimated that Leedsichthys might have been over 90 feet long, approaching the size of a blue whale. The proportions of partial fossil remains made that clear-the bony gill rakers that Leedsichthys used to strain plankton from the water were about three inches long, over three times the size of those found in skipjack tuna, for instance. The new evidence about the enormous fish is part of a study presented by University of Bristol paleontologist Jeff Liston this week at the 61st annual Symposium on Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy in Edinburgh, Scotland.Įver since Leedsichthys was first described by the British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward in 1889, researchers have understood that it was gigantic. Now it seems that Leedsichthys, which swam the seas 165 million years ago, may have been smaller than previously believed-roughly half as big as earlier estimates, in fact.Įven so, it was probably a little bigger than today's plankton-feeding whale sharks, and its standing as the biggest bony fish ever is still intact. Working with bits and pieces of incomplete skeletons, scientists have had a hard time figuring out the precise dimensions of the enormous creature. But as the Jurassic plankton-feeder's species name suggests, Leedsichthys is a problematic fish. Of all the fish to ever swim in the seas, Leedsichthys problematicus may be the record-holder for the world's largest.
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