The skull of a colossal sea monster has been pulled from the cliffs of Dorset's Jurassic Coast. It belongs to a pliosaur, a ferocious marine reptile that terrorized the oceans about 150 million years ago.
The 2 meter long fossil is one of the most complete specimens of its kind ever discovered and is providing new insights into this ancient predator, explains the BBC. The skull will appear in a David Attenborough special on BBC One on New Year's Day.
There are gasps as the sheet covering the fossil is removed and the skull is revealed for the first time. It is immediately obvious that the pliosaur found is enormous and beautifully preserved. There is no specimen anywhere else that can match it, believes paleontologist Steve Etches.
"It's one of the best fossils I've ever worked on. What makes it unique is that it's complete," he tells BBC News. The lower jaw and upper skull are interlocked, as they would be in life. Worldwide, almost no specimens with that level of detail have been found. And if they are, many fragments are missing.
The skull is longer than most humans, which gives an idea of how large the creature must have been. It's impossible not to focus on its 130 teeth, especially those at the front.
Long and sharp, they could kill with a single bite. But if you look a little closer, you can see that the back of each tooth is marked with fine ridges, which would have helped the beast pierce the flesh and then quickly extract its dagger-shaped fangs, ready for a quick second attack.
The pliosaur was the ultimate killing machine and, at between 10 and 12 meters long, with four powerful fin-like limbs to propel itself at high speed, it was the top predator in the ocean.
"The animal would have been so huge that I think it would have been able to effectively hunt down anything unlucky enough to be in its space," explains Dr Andre Rowe, from the University of Bristol.
"I have no doubt that this was like an underwater T-Rex," he concludes.
