Dinosaurs & Prehistory - Prehistoric marine predators - Liopleurodon - Prehistoric marine life - Jurassic
How long did the largest well-documented Liopleurodon probably live?
Correct!
Liopleurodon ferox was a large predatory pliosaur that lived in the seas of Europe during the Middle Jurassic. Pliosaurs were marine reptiles with usually large heads, short necks and four powerful fins. So Liopleurodon was not a dinosaur. Liopleurodon became particularly well known through older popular depictions in which the animal was shown to be 20 to 25 meters long. However, such dimensions are now considered to be clearly exaggerated. A reassessment of the known fossils published in 2026 comes to around 7.52 meters for one of the largest specimens that plausibly belong to Liopleurodon. Other relatively complete specimens are approximately in the 5 to 6.5 meter range. This does not mean that pliosaurs were generally small: fossils of other pliosaurs are known that suggest animals were more than ten meters long. However, these finds cannot simply be attributed to Liopleurodon.
Liopleurodon was a large pliosaur, but the oft-mentioned 20 to 25 meters is now considered greatly exaggerated for this genus.
