(no subject)

[watervole]

 We have an excellent local fossil museum - the Etches Collection - not too far from us in Dorset.

The local Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site and some superb marine fossils have been found there.

Here's Steve Etches with his latest fantastic discovery: a pliosaur skull.

Comments

[galadhir]

Wow! Look at that thing! It's still got flesh on it and everything. Do you know what kind of beast it is?

[watervole]

a pliosaur - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67650247

[galadhir]

That is very cool, and yes, I bet the rest of it is swimming along horizontally in the cliff behind it.

[vera_j]

Yes! Your pliosaur is very famous here - our media informed us. Perfect!

[igenlode]

Oh, I assumed when I saw the headlines that it was a typo for 'plesiosaur'...

[katherine]

Those are some teeth!

[eledonecirrhosa]

Oh that's a beautiful fossil. Well done to Steve Etches and whoever prepared the skull.

[watervole]

I was talking to my granddaughter (age 9) about the photo - they'd also discussed it at school. I hit lucky and managed to find a David Attenborough TV programme about a different fossil from the Juarassic coast, and it showed how the cleaned it, and scanned it to find out more about the bones, and then managed to prove that it had been darker on the top than the bottom through examining a miraculously preserved piece of skin!

Held her interest all the way through :)