The excavation site. Photo: BBC Studios
The BBC has the fascinating story of the discovery of a truly massive pliosaur. A fossil collector, searching the cliffs of Dorset, England, found the tip of the snout of huge pliosaur skull last year. The animal, a pliosaur, lived anount 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. The full skull, recovered from the eroding cliff, measures two meters long and contains 130 razor sharp teeth. The full story will be presented in an upcoming David Attenborough documentary on New Years Day. See the BBC video for a preview.
The skull is longer than most humans are tall, which gives you a sense of how big the creature must have been overall.
You can't help but focus on its 130 teeth, especially those at the front.
Long and razor sharp, they could kill with a single bite. But look a little closer - if you dare - and the back of each tooth is marked with fine ridges. These would have helped the beast to pierce the flesh and then quickly extract its dagger-like fangs, ready for a rapid second attack.
The pliosaur was the ultimate killing machine and at 10-12m long, with four powerful flipper-like limbs to propel itself at high speed, it was the apex predator in the ocean.
"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," says Dr Andre Rowe from Bristol University.
"I have no doubt that this was sort of like an underwater T. rex."
