In the spring of 2022, artist and fossil hunter Philip Jacobs was walking along the Jurassic Coast in southern England when he discovered the nose.
It was about 2 feet long and had teeth, likely descending from an ancient marine predator known as a pliosaur. A few days later, the crew returned by drone to find the nose had fallen off a cliff that towered over the coast, and the rest of the skull was embedded in the cliff.
The more than 6-foot-long fossil, with an intact skull and no bones missing, is a “once-in-a-lifetime find,” one expert said.
“It has some special features that have never been seen before,” Steve Etches, a paleontologist who has collected fossils and worked on the excavation for more than 40 years, said by phone. Monday. “And it’s the most complete. That means the whole skull is there, no bones are missing.”
Etches said pliosaurs were the largest carnivorous reptiles in history and were at the top of the Jurassic sea food chain. They were probably solitary hunters who preyed on marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, he added.
“They’re more like Serengeti lions,” Etches said of pliosaurs. “You have a pride of lions, but you also have a pride of thousands of antelopes and everything else. It’s like the Jurassic Sea.”
The skull is kept Etches Collection Jurassic Marine Life Museum It is located in Kimmeridge, approximately 11 miles west of the Jurassic Coast and over 160 miles southwest of London. Etches said the museum is working to have the skull in a display case in January.
Pliosaurs lived between 200 million and 65.5 million years ago and could grow to over 40 feet long. David Martil, professor emeritus of palaeontology at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, said the dinosaur had extremely powerful jaws, huge flippers and dagger-like teeth, allowing it to quickly hunt prey and break it into bite-sized pieces. search. “There was nothing at sea that could escape attack,” he says.
The first pliosaur fossils were discovered along the Jurassic Coast in the 1820s, and further discoveries have expanded scientists’ knowledge of the creature. But there was nothing close to a nearly intact skull, Dr. Martil said. “One, it’s huge,” he added. “The state of preservation is also very good.”
This skull could provide new clues about pliosaurs. Pliosaurus had nostrils that allowed water to flow into its mouth, allowing it to hunt prey by scent. Scientists hope the skull will shed further light on this anatomy and, ultimately, the structure of Jurassic marine ecosystems. More details about the skull will be shown in the documentary “Attenborough and the Jurassic Sea Monster,” which will air on PBS in February.
“We want to compare that ecosystem to other ecosystems, Cretaceous ecosystems, and even modern ecosystems to see if they are structured in the same way.” Dr. Martil said. The fact that some vertebrae remain attached to the skull suggests that the rest of the pliosaurus may be inside the cliff, waiting to be discovered, he said. added.
Etches is sure of that, but excavating it won’t be cheap. It could cost around £250,000, or around $300,000, which they hope to raise.
“We really need to extract it,” he said, crediting those who helped bring the discovery to light. “And they did it for the best reason: for science, so people all over the world can benefit from the information that comes from it.”