The fossilized skull of a huge pleiosaur has been discovered on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. The skull belonged to a ferocious marine reptile that terrorized the oceans some 150 million years ago.
The 2m-long fossil is one of the most complete specimens ever discovered and provides new information about this ancient monster. The skull will be featured in a David Attenborough special on BBC One in the New Year.
“You can immediately see that this pleiosaur is huge and perfectly preserved. There is no other specimen that matches this one,” said paleontologist Steve Etches. “This is one of the best fossils I’ve ever worked with. What makes the skull unique is that it is perfectly preserved overall,” he added to BBC News.
The lower jaw and upper part of the skull are connected together, as they were in life. No specimen with this level of detail has ever fallen into the hands of paleontologists. The skull is slightly deformed, but retains all the bones. What’s impressive is that it has 130 teeth.
Pleiosaurus was the perfect killing machine: it was 10–12 meters long and had four powerful fin-like limbs that allowed it to move at great speed in the ocean depths.
“The animal was so massive that I think it could effectively hunt whatever was nearby,” said Dr Andre Rowe from the University of Bristol. “I have no doubt that it was something like an underwater tyrannosaurus.”
The reptile’s food apparently included ichthyosaurs and even other, smaller pleiosaurs.
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