Artist’s impression of Stenopterygius quadriscissus, an ichthyosaur dotted zebra / Alamy Stock Photo
PREHISTORIC Earth was a place of monsters. There were 2.5-metre-long millipedes, flying reptiles with 11-metre wingspans and snakes that weighed over a tonne. But if it is the biggest animal of all time you are looking for, conventional wisdom says you don’t need to step back in time. The blue whale is known to reach 30 metres in length and to weigh 199 tonnes. Nothing else in more than half a billion years of animal evolution comes close, not even the largest dinosaur.
Conventional wisdom…
