Giant fossil left in Arctic in 1948 later revealed a record-size predator

The fossil of Arctobatrachus urdensis as documented in 1948 (A–C), its skull as it appears today (D), and a reconstructed illustration (E). Scale bar: 10 cm. Credit: Schoch et al., 2026. Nearly 80 years ago, a British expedition discovered the battered remains of a giant fossil on the peak of an Arctic island. Unable to take it with them, they snapped some pictures, took some bones and left the fossil to be ravaged by the icy winds and rain. Little did they know it would be found again decades later and turn out to be the first of its kind and a giant among its peers. According to a report by Phys.org, the fossil found on Bjørnøya (Bear Island) has now been identified as a new species of ancient amphibian-like creature, a plagiosaurid, named Arctobatrachus urdensis. The creature was roughly 2.7 m (about 8.9 feet) long, making it by far the largest plagiosaurid ever discovered.A fossil forgotten in the ArcticPlagiosaurids were a group of extinct bottom-dwelling, flat-bodied creatures that lived during the Triassic period (~251 to 201 million years ago). What set them apart was their extremely bizarre body shape. “The skull was much wider than long, and its outline resembles a boomer...