Ichthyosaurs are a group of successful Mesozoic marine reptiles that have a worldwide distribution, but their evolutionary origin is still unclear. In recent years, many new marine reptiles related to ichthyosaurs, and called early ichthyosauromorphs, have been found in rocks of the Early Triassic age and shed light on the origin of ichthyosaurs. These early ichthyosauromorphs have been discovered in many countries, but most of them are from China, including Cartorhynchus, Chaohusaurus, and several members of an ichthyosauromorph subgroup called the Hupehsuchia. They are generally small (about 1m long) and are from the eastern and central regions of China. In a new paper published in the journal PeerJ, researchers from China and Canada report on a new large early ichthyosauromorph, named Baisesaurus robustus, from the southwest of China, extending the known geographic distribution of this group.