While dinosaurs ruled the Earth, the seas had long been the territory of a mysterious aquatic monster closely related to snakes and lizards.
This prehistoric predator, known as a pliosaur, dominated the seas millions of years ago, using its massive size and razor-sharp teeth to tear apart the flesh of its prey.
Now, a team of fossil hunters say they have recently discovered the skull of one of these fearsome creatures that once terrorized the seas off the coast of Britain. The discovery was made in southwest England along part of the Jurassic Coast, a long stretch of the English Channel whose treacherous cliffs contain the fossilized remains of many ancient monsters. According to the BBC.
The risky mission to recover the pliosaur skull, which saw a team of climbers descend a cliff to excavate the fossil nearly 50 feet above the beach, will be documented in an upcoming BBC film hosted by David Attenborough.
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What are pliosaurs?
Fossils indicate that pliosaurs were active about 200 million to 65.5 million years ago during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. According to Britannica.
It was a long-necked cousin of the plesiosaur, a carnivorous marine creature Not dinosaurs, but reptiles With huge heads, powerful jaws, and serrated teeth. Their teardrop-shaped bodies, which can reach up to 39 feet in length, made them agile and fast as they tore through the water using their four flipper-like limbs.
A fossilized skull found in Dorset cliffs along the Jurassic Coast
The recent discovery of one of these creatures' skulls came by chance while fossil enthusiast Phil Jacobs was walking along a beach near Kimmeridge Bay in the English county of Dorset.
Jacobs, a textile designer who had spent decades searching for marine reptile fossils on the Jurassic Coast, discovered the tip of the snout among the beach boards and realized its importance. He contacted local collector Steve Etches, who assembled a team and devised a plan to extract the rest of the skull from the collapsed cliffs, according to the BBC.
In the upcoming documentary, Attenborough will tell the story of how a team of paleontologists spent weeks dangling on ropes as they drilled and hammered through rock to recover the fossil. Etches told the BBC that he believes the find is one of the most complete Jurassic pliosaur skulls ever found.
“It's one of the best fossils I've ever worked on,” Etches said He told BBC News. “All over the world, rarely are any specimens found with this level of detail. If so, many of the fragments are missing, whereas this one, although slightly deformed, contains all the bones present.”
“The ultimate killing machine”
Scientists have identified the discovery as a completely new species of pliosaur that lived 150 million years ago.
The BBC reported that the giant fossil was about seven feet long with a row of 130 long, sharp teeth that allowed it to kill its prey in a single bite. Each tooth has tiny ridges at the back to pierce the flesh of the prey and then quickly extract its fangs, ready for another quick second attack.
The British Broadcasting Corporation considered it…The ultimate killing machine“The predator wasn't very discriminating in what it hunted – it fed on dolphin-like ichthyosaurs, other reptiles like plesiosaurs, and even other pliosaurs.
“The animal was so huge that I think it would have been able to prey on anything unfortunate enough to be in its place,” Andre Roux, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol, told the BBC. “I have no doubt that this was kind of like an underwater T. rex.”
The upcoming BBC documentary will feature visual effects that bring the creature to life as Attenborough narrates its history and the strategies scientists believe he used to hunt it.
The skull will be displayed next year in Engraving Museum In Kimmeridge, but he and other experts believe the rest of the fossil could still be in the abyss.
And Etches is determined to find him.
“I'm risking my life and the rest of the animal out there,” Etches told BBC News. “This part of the cliff line is retreating a foot every year, and it will not be long before the rest of the pliosaur falls and is lost; “It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
'Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster' will be broadcast in January. No.1 on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK, and at 8/7c in February. 14 on PBS in the US.
Eric Lagata covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Contact him at [email protected]
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