Skull of 'giant sea monster' excavated from Jurassic Coast goes on display in Dorset

The skull of a 'giant sea monster' which lived, hunted and died in the sea off Dorset 150 million years ago is now on display.

The huge skull is of a pliosaur, one of the biggest carnivorous creatures the world has ever seen.

Sir David Attenborough has followed the painstaking process of excavating the skull from the Jurassic Coast, Dorset, as part of a new documentary 'Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster'.

CGI shows what the giant predator, which was the size of a London bus, would have looked like when it terrorised the seas in the time of the dinosaurs.

Sir David said: "It (the skull) weighs over half a tonne. That’s a pretty heavy thing to handle.

"Now, you have to get it out from half way up the face of a tall cliff which itself is crumbling away, and if you drop it and break it, it is a major catastrophe. I mean, you will have lost a lot of information.

"So the problem we see in the first part of the programme was about is how on earth do you go around getting this out?"

He added: "There is no question about that. (It’s) one of the biggest skulls you’ve ever seen.

"I mean, it’s huge and so, although I was aware of the tip that was first discovered, I hadn’t fully appreciated how big the whole head would be – and it’s enormous.

"So sheer scale was what first impressed me.

"The thing about the skull is that it’s not only by far the most informative part of the body, it is by far the most delicate too. And it’s the detail, and that is so rare to find it. And this is as near perfect as it can possibly get."

He continued: "It could obviously move at great speed and the teeth that were found in the tip of the skull have vertical ridges down them, which break the suction and allow it to withdraw the jaw from prey quickly – that’s the sort of deduction that we’re able to make."

Sir David said: "I’ve been passionate about collecting fossils since I was a kid and I’ve never given it up.

"It looked as though it was going to be one of the most complete skeletons ever found.

"The head was only part of it, and that was up in the cliffs. And the body itself, being about the size of a London bus, extends into the cliff.

"The decision had to be taken that we would go for the skull, because that is where all the information lies.

"The rest of it probably has to be there but it’s 30, 40 feet long, so at the moment we are concentrating on the head, the skull, the most important part."

The skull is now on display at the Museum of Jurassic Marine Life in Kimmeridge, eight miles south of Wareham, Dorset.

Dr. Steve Etches MBE, Museum Founder and Head of Collections at the museum said: "This really is the most complete Pliosaur skull that has been discovered to date and it is one of, if not the most important specimen ever to come out from the Kimmeridge clay, and globally, this is one of the best specimens you'll see".