Kronosaurus queenslandicus swimming in prehistoric waters.Photo:Getty Images
Getty Images
A British paleontologist is determined to find the rest of a sea creature from 150 million years ago that might be buried under British cliffs, after its six-foot-long skull was recovered.
Etches is referring to a marine reptile called the pliosaur whose skull was extracted from Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. “I stake my life the rest of the animal is there,” he recently toldBBC News,
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“This is a once in a lifetime find,” Etches' statement continued. “It is one of the best fossils I’ve ever worked on and I doubt I’ll ever work on anything like it again.”
He added, “Research-wise it will bring people from all over the world, and I can’t wait for local children and school groups to see it too. For years to come this fossil will be a source of new information and people will come to study it – including Dr Judyth Sassoon who is writing the scientific paper. Together we’ll come to a consensus on what a pliosaur was and how it operated in the Jurassic seas. This will reveal a tremendous amount of new information that we previously didn’t know about pliosaurs.”
“It was very exciting but, thinking logistically, not a good place to collect a fossil from,” Etches recalled, perThe Guardian. “The cliffs are sheer, crumbling and unsafe, eroding quickly. It’s a very dangerous area – with large rockfalls and slippery ledges – so safety was paramount.”
Pliosaur skull fossil. The lower jaw bone of a fossilised pliosaur found on the Dorset coast. It is believed to be the biggest example so far discovered of the biggest predator to live on the planet, October 27, 2009.Press Association via AP Images
Press Association via AP Images
The skull of the preserved specimen sports 130 teeth. According to Etches, the creature was a pliosaur that measured 30 to 39 feet with four fins that enabled it to swim very fast and attack its prey,Business Insiderreported.
“The animal would have been so massive that I think it would have been able to prey effectively on anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its space,” said Dr. Andre Rowe of the University of Bristol, per BBC News. “I do not doubt that this was sort of like an underwaterT. rex.”
Judyth Sassoon, also of the University of Bristol and an expert on pliosaurs, said of the recent find, viaNew Scientist: “It’s very likely a new species.” She also noted the specimen’s sagittal crest, a bone ridge found at the skull’s rear, saying, “The height of the crest might be an indication of differences between the male and female sexes.”
“The lower jaw and the upper skull are meshed together, as they would be in life,” Etches said, per BBC News. “Worldwide, there’s hardly any specimens ever found to that level of detail. And if they are, a lot of the bits are missing, whereas this, although it’s slightly distorted - it’s got every bone present.”
source: people.com
