COLUMBUS, Ohio - Here’s a bill that Republicans and Democrats dig.

On Wednesday, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a bill to make the Dunkleosteus terrelli the state fossil fish -- a nod to the thousands of the state’s children who study the ancient predator in school. Some even keep a model of the fossil -- with its huge jaws and fangs -- at home, as Toledo Democratic Sen. Teresa Fedor’s six-year-old grandson does.

Dunk, as the fish is called, lived around 358 million years ago when most of Northeast Ohio was covered with water. It was the largest predator in those prehistoric times -- 20 feet long and more than 1 ton in weight, according to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which has some of the best-preserved Dunkleosteus terrelli fossils.

The first fossils were discovered in 1867. More recently, additional fossils were unearthed in 1966, when the Ohio Department of Transportation built Interstate 71, said Sen. Nathan Manning, a North Ridgeville Republican who sponsored the bill.

Manning brought pictures of the fish to the Senate.

“Its bite was more powerful than the T-Rex,” he said.

The bill got an endorsement from Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof’s 12-year-old daughter, Bree Obhof of Medina, who is interested in paleontology and loves to visit the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

“What made Dunkleosteus terrelli different from similar fish was that he had self-sharpening blades of bone that worked like giant scissors and sliced rather than crushed its prey," she testified on April 9 to a Senate commmittee. "...Dunkleosteus terrelli may have died out millions of years ago, but he’s world-famous, with most of the important fossils found in the great state we call home.”

Senate Bill 123 now heads to the Ohio House for consideration. If it passes the House, it would be sent to Gov. Mike DeWine’s office to be signed into law.