#sir david attenborough

[blueiscoool]

Gigantic Skull of Prehistoric Sea Monster Found on England’s ‘Jurassic Coast’

The remarkably well-preserved skull of a gigantic pliosaur, a prehistoric sea monster, has been discovered on a beach in the county of Dorset in southern England, and it could reveal secrets about these awe-inspiring creatures.

Pliosaurs dominated the oceans at a time when dinosaurs roamed the land. The unearthed fossil is about 150 million years old, almost 3 million years younger than any other pliosaur find. Researchers are analyzing the specimen to determine whether it could even be a species new to science.

Originally spotted in spring 2022, the fossil, along with its complicated excavation and ongoing scientific investigation, are now detailed in the upcoming BBC documentary “Attenborough and the Jurassic Sea Monster,” presented by legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough, that will air February 14 on PBS.

Such was the enormous size of the carnivorous marine reptile that the skull, excavated from a cliff along Dorset’s “Jurassic Coast,” is almost 2 meters (6.6 feet) long. In its fossilized form, the specimen weighs over half a metric ton. Pliosaurs species could grow to 15 meters (50 feet) in length, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The fossil was buried deep in the cliff, about 11 meters (36 feet) above the ground and 15 meters (49 feet) down the cliff, local paleontologist Steve Etches, who helped uncover it, said in a video call.

Extracting it proved a perilous task, one fraught with danger as a crew raced against the clock during a window of good weather before summer storms closed in and the cliff eroded, possibly taking the rare and significant fossil with it.

Etches first learned of the fossil’s existence when his friend Philip Jacobs called him after coming across the pliosaur’s snout on the beach. Right from the start, they were “quite excited, because its jaws closed together which indicates (the fossil) is complete,” Etches said.

After using drones to map the cliff and identify the rest of the pliosaur’s precise position, Etches and his team embarked on a three-week operation, chiseling into the cliff while suspended in midair.

“It’s a miracle we got it out,” he said, “because we had one last day to get this thing out, which we did at 9:30 p.m.”

Etches took on the task of painstakingly restoring the skull. There was a time he found “very disillusioning” as the mud, and bone, had cracked, but “over the following days and weeks, it was a case of …, like a jigsaw, putting it all back. It took a long time but every bit of bone we got back in.”

It’s a “freak of nature” that this fossil remains in such good condition, Etches added. “It died in the right environment, there was a lot of sedimentation … so when it died and went down to the seafloor, it got buried quite quickly.”

Fearsome top predator of the seas

The nearly intact fossil illuminates the characteristics that made the pliosaur a truly fearsome predator, hunting prey such as the dolphinlike ichthyosaur. The apex predator with huge razor-sharp teeth used a variety of senses, including sensory pits still visible on its skull that may have allowed it to detect changes in water pressure, according to the documentary.

The pliosaur had a bite twice as powerful as a saltwater crocodile, which has the world’s most powerful jaws today, according to Emily Rayfield, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who appeared in the documentary. The prehistoric marine predator would have been able to cut into a car, she said.

Andre Rowe, a postdoctoral research associate of paleobiology at the University of Bristol, added that “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.”

By Issy Ronald.

[mirtadraws]

Happy Attenborough day!! Sir David is 97 (!!!) years old today!

It's hard to choose which moment from his long career to depict, there is such an abundance of incredible and moving ones. This year, I drew him chilling with some manatees

[thebeesareback]

I'm fascinated by the way scientists interact with religion. On one hand you have Sir David Attenborough, who said "I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy". On the other hand, you have JBS Haldane who remarked "the Creator must be inordinately fond of beetles: the earth is home to some 30 million different species of them." I appreciate the diversity

[guy60660]

Sir David Attenborough

[princesscatherineblog]

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during a naming ceremony for the polar research ship the RSS Sir David Attenborough on September 26, 2019 in Birkenhead, England.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Sir David Frederick Attenborough (born 8 May 1926) is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and writer.

He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.

[elliespectacular]

Diner Sores

A YTP of Prehistoric Planet, a documentary series produced for AppleTV and featuring Sir David Attenborough. Full vid with captions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVF0dGObORA

[tyrantisterror]

Everyone, I've made an important discovery! After decades of being lost media, I've finally discovered the unfinished audio recording of Sir David Attenborough's 90's documentary Monarch of the Lions! Up till now it's only been known from written transcripts! This is so exciting!

[entheognosis]

Ancient trees are precious. There is little else on Earth that plays host to such a rich community of life within a single living organism.

Sir David Attenborough

Old baobab tree in Mozambique. These trees store water in a hollow inside the trunk (sometimes broken open by thirsty elephants). They can get very old, even over a thousand years.

[fishthegenderwitch]

I made a higher res, better quality version of this to frame for my house. Thought I'd share it here too. ♥

[earthanthem]

(via GIPHY)

[loz37]

Just an Attenborough appreciation post.

98 years on this planet, and counting. Couldn't happen to a better man. Seriously read his biographies ❤️.

[julesofnature]

“If children grow up not knowing about nature and appreciating it, they will not understand it, and if they don’t understand it, they won’t protect it, and if they don’t protect it, who will?” ~ Sir David Attenborough, ‘Conserving Wonder’

[cold-earth-connection]

New work! BBC "Mammals" EP.04, COLD.

Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, Directed by Will Lawson

I was sent to the West Ice of the North Atlantic, just off the coast of Greenland, to film the birth and weening of Harp Seals, possibly the most adorable baby animal on this planet... Available on BBC iPlayer now, and around the world soon!

[obaewankenope]

Read about the BBC censorship riot going on right now with Lineker and Sir David Attenborough's 6th episode of Wild Isles that looks at nature devastation in the UK and stuff. Like wowsa.

In Sir David Attenborough voice: and here we see the British Broadcasting Corporation, the supposed pinnacle of impartiality, adhering to the will of its Tory Masters of the last 12 years to lick their own arseholes! Wonderful!