“It is definitely a surprise,” said Benjamin C. Moon, an ichthyosaurus researcher at the University of Bristol in England who was not involved with the research.

Aged 12, she and her brother discovered one of the first ichthyosaurus skeletons; she would make many other pioneering finds, and become immensely knowledgeable in the emerging field of palaeontology.

“I propose to assign the name Ichthyosauro-coprus to the fossil faeces which are thus evidently derived from ichthyosauri.”

Most of the vegetable monsters went out with the ichthyosaurus, and as for the few that remain, they will yet be an affront to the pigmies who are swarming on the earth.

The enormous frames of all sorts of huge monsters, and the great lizard called the ichthyosaurus, had been replaced by smaller and more graceful creatures, who could move lightly and easily through this new world.