Attenborough and the Sea Dragon


Attenborough and the Sea Dragon

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The remains of a dragon have just been discovered

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in the cliffs of Dorset on the south-east coast of England -

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one that has been hidden in the rocks for 200 million years.

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It was an enormous marine reptile that ruled the seas

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at the same time as the dinosaurs ruled the land.

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Scientifically, it's called an ichthyosaur.

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Since Jurassic times,

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its fossilized bones have been locked away in these cliffs.

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But now we have a chance to reveal it and its story.

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Lots and lots of bone in there.

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The bones are so well preserved, it may be able to give us

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new insights into the lives of these remarkable creatures.

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Together with a team of scientists,

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we will reconstruct the skeleton and compare it to animals alive today.

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We'll try to understand how it looked.

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We have actual preservation of the skin of our ichthyosaur.

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How extraordinary!

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And how it survived in the open ocean.

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Could this be a completely new species of ichthyosaur?

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Our search for evidence will lead us

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into an intriguing forensic investigation into how it died.

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I think you're looking at a 200 million year old murder mystery.

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Solving that mystery will throw light on the extraordinary world

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in the Jurassic seas that once existed just off our shores.

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The story of this extraordinary dragon

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starts here in Dorset on the south coast of England,

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one of the most important geological sites in the world -

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the Jurassic Coast.

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It stretches for almost 100 miles from Devon to Dorset.

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And it was here that the early geologists

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first collected evidence that once the world was ruled

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by monstrous reptiles, quite unlike anything alive on Earth today.

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Evidence of creatures that existed all that time ago

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can still be found on these beaches.

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Fossil collectors have been coming here for literally centuries

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and these rapidly eroding cliffs are providing them

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with a continuous supply of exciting things to find.

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I started looking for fossils when I was a boy

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and I've never lost the feeling of excitement

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and anticipation of what one might discover.

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The commonest fossils here are coiled shells called ammonites

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and you can find them all over the place.

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There's one here on this boulder.

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You can see the whorls there,

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but it's mostly been worn away by the sea.

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But sometimes if you're lucky, you can find nodules like this

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and if you look at them,

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you can see there's the edge there of an ammonite and if I hit it...

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If I put on protective glasses and I hit it, it should...

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HE LAUGHS

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How about that?

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Wow!

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What a find!

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Ammonites, in fact, are quite common on this beach,

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but every now and again, something truly rare

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and spectacular is found here and quite often by this man -

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one of the most skilled fossil hunters I know.

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Chris Moore has been collecting fossils here for more than 30 years.

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Recently, he came across a boulder

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which he thought might contain something unusual.

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Back in his workshop,

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he exposed a mosaic of small, beautifully preserved bones

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which he knew straight away were the front fins,

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the paddles, of an ichthyosaur.

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But they were unlike any he had ever seen before.

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I still collect fossils.

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I even have the remains of an ichthyosaur -

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a small one of a kind that's relatively common.

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This was collected by Chris about ten years ago in Dorset.

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I never found anything as beautiful as this.

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It's got jaws and it's got teeth and it's got paddles.

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And Dorset was the very first place

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where they found a really complete skeleton of one of these creatures.

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This is a picture of it,

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published for the very first time in 1814.

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People thought it was some kind of monster, but what was it?

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They thought it was a kind of cross between a reptile and a fish

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so they called it an ichthyosaur - a fish lizard or sea dragon.

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Since that time, many fossil fragments of ichthyosaurs

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have been discovered on the Jurassic Coast.

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But complete skeletons are very rare.

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The particular one that Chris has just found

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is significantly different from any that's ever been found here before.

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It's not easy to get to the beach where it was discovered.

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At high tide, the only way to do so is by boat.

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I asked Chris where the rest of the skeleton might still lie.

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It's in the very top limestone bed

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where the cliffs are at the lowest point.

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It's got about two metres on top of clay

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and we'll have to clear this material off

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till we get to the limestone bed.

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It' a lot of hard work.

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It's a lot of digging, yeah, and also we have to do it, really,

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before the winter turns again and the weather gets bad

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because there's a chance that the next landslip

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will just push it off onto the beach and destroy it.

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In Jurassic times, sea covered all this area.

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On its floor, sediments washed down from the land

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turned into layers of shales and limestone.

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The land rose, the sea retreated

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and now in the rocks,

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you can find the remains of the creatures

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that once lived in those ancient waters.

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As well as the remains of ammonites, there are the bones of fish,

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such as sharks.

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But the top predators at this time were reptiles - ichthyosaurs.

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They dominated the seas for more than 150 million years.

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After getting permission to dig,

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the team clamber down the cliff to the particular layer

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where the rest of our ichthyosaur skeleton should be lying.

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I'm going to need at least another metre,

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cos I need to drop down to the next bit.

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It's dangerous work.

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These cliffs occasionally collapse without warning.

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To make sure that they don't damage any of the fossils,

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the team do all the digging by hand.

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There's just loads of roots.

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Tonnes of clay have to be removed before they even reach

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the layer of limestone where they hope

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the rest of the bones still lie.

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Wayhey!

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It was on this very coast

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that the first complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur was discovered.

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It was found in the 19th century

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by a remarkable woman called Mary Anning.

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Mary lived in the little town of Lyme Regis,

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the daughter of a cabinet maker who collected fossils as a hobby.

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When Mary was only 11, her father died

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so she and her brother started selling fossils to visitors

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to support their widowed mother.

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Lyme Regis Museum now devotes a whole gallery to her and her finds.

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Mary had an extraordinary talent for finding fossils and in 1811,

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she discovered this gigantic creature,

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the like of which no-one had ever seen before.

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Dinosaurs had not yet been discovered.

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No-one had any idea that way back in pre-history,

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there were such gigantic creatures,

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so this caused a sensation.

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It was then that the popular name "sea dragon"

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was given to these prehistoric monsters.

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Scientists speculated on how they lived

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and artists tried to imagine what they must have looked like

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and how they behaved.

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Back at the cliff face, Chris and his team are hard at it.

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But they haven't found any more bones.

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This is a massive piece. Tombstone!

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Right, ready?

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Chris is convinced that the skeleton to which the paddles belonged

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must be somewhere here and they check every rock.

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Beautiful shale!

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-Lovely!

-Anything interesting?

-Moment of truth...

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Nothing.

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-Just push it off.

-Yeah.

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Is there anything showing?

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Nothing else here.

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Oh, gosh, that's hard work.

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I hope there's something here.

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I almost don't want to look!

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-Ah!

-What have you found?

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-There's a bone.

-Loads of bone going all the way... There's bone there.

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-There's something here!

-HE LAUGHS

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At long last, the team's efforts are rewarded.

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We've got some bones here!

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-There's loads of bones.

-Fantastic!

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Ah! What's this?

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Is that a vertebrae?

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But the bones are not in the position

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the team had expected to find them.

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Instead of lying across the face of the cliff,

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the skeleton seems to be bending back into it.

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We're going to have to go down through there.

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It means much more work.

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And to make matters worse, a storm is brewing.

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The rain is just starting,

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but I think we've got to make a bit of a run for it.

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We won't be working any more in this for the moment. It's torrential.

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Beautiful rainbow, though.

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A rainbow will be little comfort if the storm persists.

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Rough seas and heavy downpours can cause landslips,

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which could easily destroy any chance of retrieving the bones.

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It was after just such a storm that Chris found the front limbs,

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the paddles of our sea dragon.

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They convinced him that the fossil was something special.

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VOICEOVER: You can see why when you compare them

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VOICEOVER: to the paddles of the kind of ichthyosaur

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VOICEOVER: that's usually found here.

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This is an adult and this is the paddle of this creature

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and if you compare it to this one...

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-Oh, it's huge. Oh, yeah.

-I've never seen anything quite like it.

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There are half a dozen rows of digits there and how many there?

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I think there's at least nine or ten crossways

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and obviously, you know, many more in length.

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It's getting on for twice the number of digits.

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-And the whole shape of the fin is completely...

-Quite different.

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And must be new, therefore?

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-I think so. I've never seen anything quite like it.

-How exciting!

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VOICEOVER: It's extremely rare to find

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VOICEOVER: a new species of ichthyosaur these days.

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Only nine have been discovered here in the last 200 years.

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But can these strange paddles tell us something

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about how this odd ichthyosaur lived?

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To try and find out, we are going to construct a three-dimensional model.

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To do that, we first need to have the paddles scanned.

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So, Chris is taking them to Southampton University.

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Here, the engineering department has one of the largest

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high resolution scanners in the country.

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It's not every day someone walks in

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with a 200-million-year-old sea reptile.

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The machine can scan objects of all different shapes and sizes

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from ancient coins to the components of spacecraft.

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To create a picture, the scanner takes thousands of X-ray images

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in cross sections through the fossil as it rotates.

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It's not long before the first images appear.

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That's amazing. It looks really clear.

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You can even see the bones laying underneath the paddle.

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At the moment, we're just doing one section.

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We're going to do multiple scans down the specimen

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and build it all back together into a three-dimensional volume.

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The scans of the paddles are sent to Bristol University.

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Here, scientists can isolate the image of each bone within the rock

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and then assemble them to create a detailed three-dimensional model.

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The team is particularly excited by the shape

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and structure of these paddles and I've come to find out why.

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We've got a complete paddle here taken from the bones itself,

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fully reconstructed, rearticulated

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so this is as close as we can get to what it would have looked like.

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We can actually start using this paddle to try and tell us

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what species it might have been.

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Because of the size of the paddle

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and the way that some of these bones articulate with each other,

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it's different to other ichthyosaurus

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and so this could be a new species.

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-That would be great.

-It would be jolly exciting.

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VOICEOVER: We won't know for sure until we find the rest of the body,

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but can the paddles tell us something

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about the way in which this creature swam?

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There are a lot of bones in this paddle,

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which would have been good for holding steady

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and also for allowing it to be manoeuvrable in the water.

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-There would have been cartilage round that, wouldn't there?

-Yes.

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All of the gaps between the bones

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would have been filled in with cartilage

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and even further around the paddle itself,

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giving it a paddle-like shape, giving it a cross section

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a bit like an aerofoil

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so that it could cut straight through the water.

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-Could they fold them in to the side?

-Probably not.

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Looking at the muscles and where they attach,

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it suggests these are moving up and down,

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helping it to turn very quickly

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or keeping it on the straight and narrow

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when it wants to be a little more sedate.

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The shape of the paddles and the way they moved

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seems very like the way an animal alive today uses its paddles.

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That animal usually lives in tropical waters

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like these in the Caribbean.

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The sea here is warm

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with temperatures much like they would have been

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in Jurassic times around Britain.

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And the animal in question...

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is the dolphin.

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Dolphins, of course, are mammals, not reptiles like ichthyosaurs.

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Nonetheless, the two groups have bodies shaped in very similar ways.

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The front fins or paddles of both

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would have helped to steady themselves

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as they turn and cut through the water.

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And both have similar dorsal fins.

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So, although they lived 200 million years apart,

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dolphins and ichthyosaurs share many physical characteristics

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and that's because they evolved in similar ways

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as a response to a similar environment.

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Like dolphins,

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ichthyosaurs evolved from ancestors that had once lived on land.

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As they became adapted to life in water,

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they lost the ability to walk,

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their bodies became more streamlined

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and their forelimbs turned into paddles to help them swim.

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But ichthyosaurs do differ from dolphins in two striking ways.

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Dolphins have tails that are flattened horizontally

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and they drive themselves forward by beating their tails up and down.

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But we know from their fossils that ichthyosaur tails

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were flattened vertically like those of sharks,

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so they must have swum in the same sort of way

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by sweeping their tails from side to side.

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Ichthyosaurs, unlike dolphins, also had back paddles.

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They, too, would have helped stabilise them as they swam.

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And what's more, the paddles of our ichthyosaur

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are particularly large and long,

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rather like those of the oceanic whitetip shark.

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That shape helps the whitetip to cruise for long distances

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with very little expenditure of energy in their search for food.

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So, it could be that our ichthyosaur was also a long-distance traveller

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and only an infrequent visitor to the Lyme Regis seas,

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which could be why no-one has ever found one of these here before.

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Back at the dig site, the rain has stopped at last.

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But the storm is a reminder that winter is on its way.

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The team must try to extract the rest of the dragon's body

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before worse weather arrives.

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That's how hard the rock is.

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It's actually smashed the end off the chisel.

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So, you can see what we're dealing with.

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At last, they find signs of the rest of the skeleton.

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-Lots and lots of bone in there.

-Yeah.

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Ribs and all sorts of stuff.

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And there's another particularly exciting discovery.

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-Is there skin?

-Yeah, look.

-Oh, really?

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They've found signs of fossilized skin.

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Rare, isn't it?

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Yeah, very rare.

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The blocks that contain bones and skin

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can't be thrown down like the other rocks.

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They must be carefully strapped up and gently lowered.

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That's the first block down.

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A few more to go, but if they go like that, I'll be very pleased.

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Two weeks after they started work, I go down again to check on progress.

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-How's it going?

-Well, quite well so far.

-A lot shifted.

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-Yeah, about 20 tonnes of it, I think.

-Really?

-Yes.

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How's it doing? Is it caught?

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-No, it's OK.

-It's OK? Yeah.

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What do you reckon's in it?

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This block's got vertebrae, the other part of the ribcage

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and it's definitely got the back paddles in there.

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You can see a cross section through them.

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VOICEOVER: While the team continue lowering the huge blocks,

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VOICEOVER: Chris shows me what they've already collected.

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So, lots over here.

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-Ah, well, I can see something there.

-Ah!

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-That's more obvious, yeah.

-Yeah.

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Here, you can see, glinting in the sunlight,

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sections through the backbone, the vertebral column.

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Wow!

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And these are the ribs that are still attached to the vertebrae

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and these are the neurals

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that come off the backbone.

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The spines off the top of the back.

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-Yeah, but they've actually got skin preserved on them.

-No, really?

-Yeah.

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-Can you see that here?

-Well, that's the very black.

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You can see it on the impression as well.

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VOICEOVER: This is great news, but something puzzles me.

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Would the head have been on this side or that side?

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Most likely here in this next slab.

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-And it's not there?

-Not so far.

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Oh, boy!

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How many more tonnes to go?

0:24:290:24:31

HE SIGHS, THEY LAUGH

0:24:310:24:34

-Only a few!

-THEY LAUGH

0:24:360:24:38

OK.

0:24:400:24:42

Once the blocks are down on the beach,

0:24:500:24:52

the team remove as much excess limestone as possible

0:24:520:24:56

to make them lighter.

0:24:560:24:58

Even then, they're extremely heavy

0:24:580:25:01

so to get them back to Lyme Regis,

0:25:010:25:03

they're loaded onto a pontoon and towed back by boat.

0:25:030:25:07

So, for the first time in 200 million years,

0:25:250:25:30

our strange ichthyosaur once again takes to the water.

0:25:300:25:35

The dig may be over,

0:25:460:25:48

but the investigation is only just beginning.

0:25:480:25:51

WHIRRING

0:25:510:25:54

Now, the work becomes more delicate, involving not sledgehammers,

0:25:540:25:58

but small vibrating chisels

0:25:580:26:00

that chip off the limestone in tiny flakes.

0:26:000:26:03

It's detailed work that will take months to complete.

0:26:080:26:12

It's like a jigsaw puzzle of things you can't see.

0:26:140:26:17

It's almost forensic.

0:26:180:26:20

You don't know the story, you don't know what's inside the block

0:26:220:26:25

until you reveal it.

0:26:250:26:27

I've never seen in all my years an ichthyosaur that looked like this

0:26:290:26:33

so every other part of the skeleton that we reveal

0:26:330:26:36

is very exciting cos you're never quite sure what's going on,

0:26:360:26:40

what it's going to look like and it is, it's very different.

0:26:400:26:45

Day after day and week after week,

0:26:470:26:50

Chris and his team work patiently to expose more of the skeleton.

0:26:500:26:55

And as they do so, the bones reveal something very intriguing.

0:26:560:27:01

I've come down to Chris' workshop to take a look.

0:27:040:27:07

It's a bit of squeeze past the plesiosaur.

0:27:110:27:13

VOICEOVER: It really is an Aladdin's cave.

0:27:160:27:18

VOICEOVER; After weeks of work,

0:27:200:27:21

VOICEOVER: Chris has exposed the backbones and ribs.

0:27:210:27:25

So, this is it so far.

0:27:260:27:28

VOICEOVER: And in doing so, he's made a startling discovery.

0:27:280:27:32

It looks like it's been attacked.

0:27:320:27:34

-Gosh!

-There's breakages all through the ribcage.

0:27:340:27:38

If you follow one rib, you go along here, down to here,

0:27:380:27:41

then this piece corresponds to this, which then goes over to here

0:27:410:27:45

so one rib is now broken into three pieces.

0:27:450:27:50

How extraordinary! But what's happened here?

0:27:500:27:54

Here, the vertebral column's been actually pulled away.

0:27:540:27:59

I'm fairly positive it was done in life and the paddles,

0:27:590:28:03

the flippers have been ripped off.

0:28:030:28:05

Where would they go?

0:28:050:28:07

But they're in a very odd position, aren't they?

0:28:150:28:18

I mean, they're pointing in the wrong direction.

0:28:180:28:21

They should be basically in this position

0:28:210:28:24

and facing the other way up

0:28:240:28:25

and they've been ripped off and turned over.

0:28:250:28:29

Gosh!

0:28:290:28:30

Well, where was the head?

0:28:310:28:33

The head should be here.

0:28:330:28:35

-That's the very last vertebrae.

-Back of the neck?

-Yeah.

0:28:350:28:39

So, the head's been torn off and there's no evidence.

0:28:390:28:43

There's no teeth or pieces of bone. It's completely gone.

0:28:430:28:47

-So, it's a murder.

-Yes!

-Really?

0:28:470:28:52

Yeah, I think it was killed.

0:28:520:28:53

-Did this predator crunch the head, do you think?

-Who knows?

0:28:530:28:57

It's 200 millions years ago,

0:28:570:28:59

so it's a bit of guesswork, really, isn't it?

0:28:590:29:02

So, it's a murder story without a complete body yet.

0:29:020:29:06

To find out more, we need to reveal the rest of the skeleton.

0:29:090:29:12

So it's all hands on deck.

0:29:150:29:17

They've even roped me in.

0:29:310:29:33

This is more difficult than it looks.

0:29:440:29:48

Very good!

0:29:520:29:54

Could you start on three days a week?

0:29:560:29:59

-Is it all right?

-It's good, yeah.

-I haven't gone too close to the bone?

0:30:000:30:03

-No, no.

-Phew, that's a relief!

0:30:030:30:05

But what of the missing head?

0:30:080:30:10

If it was ripped off,

0:30:120:30:13

Chris thinks he might still be able to find it

0:30:130:30:16

somewhere on the beach,

0:30:160:30:18

so at every opportunity,

0:30:180:30:20

he scours the area where the first block was found.

0:30:200:30:24

The best time to look is after a storm

0:30:280:30:31

when a strong sea has moved sand and shingle

0:30:310:30:33

and perhaps revealed the rocks beneath.

0:30:330:30:36

To try and deduce just how our ichthyosaur met its fate,

0:30:500:30:55

we've sent images of the fossil to someone who specialises

0:30:550:31:00

in investigating the cause of death in prehistoric animals.

0:31:000:31:04

You sent me some photographs and I had a look at some of these breaks.

0:31:060:31:08

Now, first of all, I noticed this, here.

0:31:080:31:11

If you look, you can just see this bulbous piece on the rib here.

0:31:110:31:15

This is where the rib has healed after a break

0:31:150:31:17

and the animal's gone on to live another day.

0:31:170:31:20

There's a bite mark here that runs all the way up the paddle bones.

0:31:200:31:25

You can see that it's healed as well.

0:31:250:31:27

Yeah, it's definitely an old injury.

0:31:270:31:28

-This animal's had a little bit of a bad start in life.

-Yeah.

0:31:280:31:32

But some of the other breaks tell a different story.

0:31:320:31:36

If you look down here and especially this one,

0:31:360:31:39

this fracture here mirrors that fracture there

0:31:390:31:42

and then we can see a whole line of fractures

0:31:420:31:47

where there's no new bone growth.

0:31:470:31:49

Something has actually crushed this ribcage.

0:31:490:31:52

So look here at these neural spines.

0:31:520:31:55

These are absolutely perfect

0:31:550:31:57

and then from here, they're broken all the way down to here.

0:31:570:32:01

This is the last one that's broken and then here,

0:32:010:32:04

they're perfect again.

0:32:040:32:05

So, there to there is damaged.

0:32:050:32:09

On the ribs, there to there is damaged and here, too,

0:32:090:32:12

and also on some of these belly ribs

0:32:120:32:15

so I think there's a bite which goes right across here.

0:32:150:32:19

That probably reflects the width of the skull of the animal that bit it.

0:32:190:32:24

Yeah, yeah. So it came in across here, almost.

0:32:240:32:27

Somewhere like that, yeah.

0:32:270:32:29

There was a massive bite, it caused catastrophic injury

0:32:290:32:33

and, remember, the ribcage is protecting lungs.

0:32:330:32:35

This was an air-breathing marine animal and as a swimmer,

0:32:350:32:40

these lungs are vital not just for breathing, but for its buoyancy.

0:32:400:32:44

So, once this ribcage is punctured and the lungs are punctured,

0:32:440:32:48

this animal is dead.

0:32:480:32:49

It can't breathe

0:32:490:32:50

and also it's going to sink straight down to the sea floor as well.

0:32:500:32:53

It's quite likely that the animal that killed this animal,

0:32:530:32:57

presumably it was looking for food,

0:32:570:32:59

it didn't get to eat it.

0:32:590:33:01

Oh, no, I think it just killed it.

0:33:010:33:03

It didn't eat it, or else it wouldn't be so intact.

0:33:030:33:05

So this probably all took place in the surface water,

0:33:050:33:08

but as soon as it's done this injury,

0:33:080:33:10

this thing just sank like a stone straight down to the sea floor

0:33:100:33:13

and then it was lost to the animal that was trying to eat it.

0:33:130:33:17

So, it looks as if Chris' attack theory might be right.

0:33:170:33:21

But what type of creature could possibly have inflicted

0:33:230:33:26

so much damage to our sea dragon?

0:33:260:33:29

A rather unusual fossil in Chris' collection might give us a clue.

0:33:300:33:35

This is fossilised ichthyosaur droppings called a coprolite

0:33:410:33:48

and what makes it particularly interesting

0:33:480:33:50

is that within this piece of dung, you can see fish scales.

0:33:500:33:56

So, that shows that ichthyosaurs were fish eaters,

0:33:590:34:04

but more than that, this one is even more interesting

0:34:040:34:09

because in this piece of dung, there are teeth - ichthyosaur teeth.

0:34:090:34:17

So, the animal that produced this was almost certainly a cannibal.

0:34:170:34:23

It ate other ichthyosaur species.

0:34:230:34:27

Could it be that our dragon was killed by one of its own kind?

0:34:280:34:33

To find out more,

0:34:400:34:42

I've come to the Natural History Museum of Stuttgart in Germany.

0:34:420:34:46

Here, they have one of the most impressive

0:34:500:34:52

and varied collections of ichthyosaurs in the world.

0:34:520:34:57

They came in all shapes and sizes,

0:34:590:35:02

but of all the ichthyosaurs that existed 200 million years ago,

0:35:020:35:08

there was one which was particularly fearsome.

0:35:080:35:12

This is temnodontosaurus,

0:35:210:35:24

one of the biggest of the sea dragons so far discovered.

0:35:240:35:27

They grew up to 10m long

0:35:270:35:30

and individual bones have been discovered which suggest

0:35:300:35:34

that they could grow even bigger than that.

0:35:340:35:38

The remains of these terrifying sea monsters

0:35:390:35:42

were discovered in a quarry just outside Stuttgart.

0:35:420:35:45

These are the biggest complete temnodontosaurus fossils ever found.

0:35:450:35:51

This huge predator had the largest eye known of any animal,

0:35:540:36:01

which would have given it extremely acute eyesight.

0:36:010:36:04

Not only that, but the eye was surrounded

0:36:040:36:07

by a ring of scutes - bony plates -

0:36:070:36:11

to protect it from the water pressure at depth.

0:36:110:36:14

So, with eyes the size of footballs,

0:36:160:36:19

this monster was able to hunt at all depths of the Jurassic ocean.

0:36:190:36:24

It also had rows of sharp teeth

0:36:330:36:38

that would have allowed it to rip apart almost anything.

0:36:380:36:40

These teeth are shaped like blades, well suited for cutting into flesh.

0:36:430:36:49

And here's another specimen of temnodontosaurus

0:36:510:36:55

that is proof positive that it really was a hunter.

0:36:550:36:59

Here is its stomach and inside its stomach,

0:37:000:37:04

you can see these tiny little circular bones,

0:37:040:37:08

which are the backbones, the vertebrae, of a baby ichthyosaur.

0:37:080:37:13

So we now know that temnodontosaurus

0:37:140:37:18

could devour young ichthyosaurs,

0:37:180:37:21

but would one have been capable

0:37:210:37:23

of eating an adult ichthyosaur like ours?

0:37:230:37:27

Fossils of temnodontosaurus have been found in other regions,

0:37:280:37:32

including our own Jurassic Coast.

0:37:320:37:35

So, this monster could well be our prime suspect.

0:37:370:37:42

To build our case further,

0:37:430:37:46

we're going to analyse another specimen of the same species

0:37:460:37:49

that was found on the Jurassic Coast.

0:37:490:37:52

This is the skull of a temnodontosaurus

0:37:540:37:58

and as you can see, it's huge.

0:37:580:38:01

This specimen was found by Mary Anning

0:38:010:38:04

on the Dorset coast in the 19th century

0:38:040:38:08

and we are hoping that we may be able to use it

0:38:080:38:11

with the latest techniques

0:38:110:38:13

to tell us just how powerful these great jaws could be.

0:38:130:38:19

So, for the first time ever, our team of scientists

0:38:190:38:22

are going to attempt to calculate

0:38:220:38:25

the bite strength of a temnodontosaurus.

0:38:250:38:28

The first step is to scan the skull.

0:38:290:38:32

Not as easy as it sounds.

0:38:350:38:38

Very few scanners are big enough,

0:38:380:38:40

but there's one here at the Royal Veterinary College,

0:38:400:38:42

where they're more accustomed to scanning horses.

0:38:420:38:45

The temnodontosaurus skull is 2m long and weighs more than 200kg.

0:38:510:38:57

Luckily, it's in two pieces.

0:38:590:39:01

Otherwise it couldn't be fitted into even this huge scanner.

0:39:010:39:05

OK. One, two, three and up.

0:39:070:39:09

These scans will help the team

0:39:220:39:25

to not only reconstruct the temnodontosaurus' skull,

0:39:250:39:28

but also work out the size of its jaw muscles.

0:39:280:39:32

They can then assess the power of this huge predator's bite

0:39:320:39:36

and see if it was strong enough to kill our ichthyosaur.

0:39:360:39:41

Temnodontosaurs are unusual

0:39:420:39:44

in that they had huge, sharp teeth for cutting through flesh,

0:39:440:39:48

but how did other ichthyosaurs catch their prey?

0:39:480:39:52

To get a clue, I've come to see a modern day predator in action.

0:39:520:39:57

That is a gharial crocodile from Indonesia.

0:40:080:40:15

Its jaws, as you can see, are not wide and flat

0:40:170:40:20

like an African crocodile's,

0:40:200:40:22

but long and thin and because of that shape,

0:40:220:40:26

there's very little resistance to the water

0:40:260:40:28

so they can snatch fish, which they do very effectively.

0:40:280:40:32

They're very formidable animals indeed.

0:40:350:40:39

Ichthyosaurs must have fed in much the same way as that.

0:40:550:40:59

Their jaws were very similar to those of the gharial -

0:40:590:41:03

simple studs to grip the prey, no need to chew it

0:41:030:41:08

because the jaws at the back were quite big enough

0:41:080:41:11

to enable the animal to swallow their prey whole,

0:41:110:41:14

just as the gharial does.

0:41:140:41:16

Gharials regularly shed their teeth

0:41:220:41:25

and here's one I've just picked out of this pool.

0:41:250:41:28

You can see that they're very simple teeth, just like ichthyosaur teeth.

0:41:280:41:33

But that's all you need if all you have to do is to grab a fish.

0:41:330:41:37

So, it's likely that our ichthyosaur had teeth and jaws specially adapted

0:41:460:41:51

to catch small, slippery fish and squid,

0:41:510:41:54

just like a gharial crocodile.

0:41:540:41:58

Back in Lyme Regis, the work on the bones has taken a dramatic turn.

0:42:020:42:07

Chris has found that there is fossilized skin

0:42:090:42:13

over nearly the whole skeleton.

0:42:130:42:16

It seems to be virtually covering the whole thing.

0:42:160:42:18

It's rare to find any sign whatever of skin on fossils,

0:42:200:42:23

let alone so much of it.

0:42:230:42:25

Fiann Smithwick, an expert on fossilized skin,

0:42:260:42:30

has come to take a sample back to his lab.

0:42:300:42:33

We can look and see if there's any evidence

0:42:330:42:35

of the original pigment preserved in the skin.

0:42:350:42:37

-Oh, that's a lovely piece.

-That's really good. That'll be perfect.

0:42:370:42:41

Fiann hopes that this remarkably preserved sample

0:42:410:42:45

might tell us what the skin looked like and even what colour it was.

0:42:450:42:49

At the University of Bristol,

0:42:500:42:52

he places a tiny sample of the fossilized skin in a machine

0:42:520:42:57

that coats its surface with minute particles of gold.

0:42:570:43:01

They will reflect the rays of a scanning electron microscope.

0:43:130:43:17

It's astonishing that you can actually see

0:43:210:43:24

the remains of skin on such an ancient fossil.

0:43:240:43:26

But this microscope can also magnify its structure

0:43:320:43:35

tens of thousands of times.

0:43:350:43:37

Here, we have an exceptional level of preservation of the skin

0:43:460:43:49

of our ichthyosaur, despite being 200 million years old,

0:43:490:43:52

so the structures we're looking at here

0:43:520:43:54

are around half a micrometre across

0:43:540:43:56

and a micrometre is one millionth of a metre

0:43:560:43:58

and you see here these little granules

0:43:580:44:01

and these are preserved melanosomes.

0:44:010:44:04

Now, melanosomes contain the pigment that you have in mammal hair,

0:44:040:44:08

in bird feathers and in reptile skin and the abundance of them

0:44:080:44:12

and the distribution of them can tell us

0:44:120:44:14

about the overall colour patterns of the animal.

0:44:140:44:16

So, having a high abundance means you're likely to be darker

0:44:160:44:18

and having a low abundance means you're likely to be lighter.

0:44:180:44:21

This area has come from the back.

0:44:210:44:24

There's a large abundance of these melanosomes.

0:44:240:44:26

There's a lot of pigment here

0:44:260:44:27

and when we look at samples

0:44:270:44:29

that have come from the bottom of the animal,

0:44:290:44:31

we don't see this pigment in this level of abundance

0:44:310:44:34

so it most likely had a much darker back than it did a belly

0:44:340:44:38

and this conforms to a type of colour pattern

0:44:380:44:40

known as countershading in modern animals.

0:44:400:44:42

You can see countershading in lots of sea animals today.

0:44:440:44:48

Great white sharks, for example.

0:44:480:44:50

Both predators and prey are coloured in this way.

0:44:560:45:00

It makes them more difficult to see both from above and below.

0:45:000:45:04

So, this is the first time that we've actually seen

0:45:060:45:09

evidence of a countershaded pattern in an ichthyosaur.

0:45:090:45:11

So, that really is a step forward in our knowledge.

0:45:110:45:15

It is and it can tell us

0:45:150:45:16

a huge amount about the way the animal might have lived.

0:45:160:45:19

Just from looking at that picture?

0:45:190:45:20

-Just from looking at these melanosomes.

-Great!

0:45:200:45:24

Today, countershaded animals tend to live in open water

0:45:280:45:32

where there's good visibility.

0:45:320:45:34

Ichthyosaurs also lived in the open seas

0:45:360:45:39

so being camouflaged in this way

0:45:390:45:41

would have been very valuable to them.

0:45:410:45:43

The latest scientific research suggests that countershading

0:45:490:45:53

might also protect against ultraviolet light

0:45:530:45:57

and even help to regulate body temperature.

0:45:570:46:00

As an air-breathing creature,

0:46:040:46:06

our ichthyosaur would have had to spend much time near the surface.

0:46:060:46:11

So countershading could have been a benefit for that reason as well.

0:46:110:46:15

There are, of course,

0:46:230:46:25

many marine reptiles still living in the oceans today, like turtles.

0:46:250:46:31

The biggest of them is the leatherback,

0:46:330:46:36

whose ancestors, in fact, were around

0:46:360:46:39

at the same time as the ichthyosaurs.

0:46:390:46:41

Today, they come ashore to nest in many places,

0:46:420:46:46

including the Caribbean.

0:46:460:46:47

This huge leatherback turtle is laying her eggs.

0:46:490:46:54

She's hauled her way up from the sea and dug a hole

0:46:540:46:59

and now she's depositing about 100 of them.

0:46:590:47:03

She'll then fill in the hole

0:47:050:47:07

and then work her way down back to the sea.

0:47:070:47:11

It's clearly a very laborious process.

0:47:130:47:15

And that's the challenge facing all reptiles that live in the sea -

0:47:170:47:21

having to come onto land to lay eggs.

0:47:210:47:25

Ichthyosaurs were reptiles and they lived in the sea,

0:47:270:47:32

but they were so well adapted to a life at sea,

0:47:320:47:35

that they gave birth to live young

0:47:350:47:39

and that would have saved the sea dragons

0:47:390:47:41

making the dangerous journey onto land.

0:47:410:47:44

There is remarkable evidence that ichthyosaurs gave birth

0:47:470:47:51

to live young in the Stuttgart museum.

0:47:510:47:53

And here is a truly extraordinary, beautiful, almost poignant fossil -

0:48:200:48:27

proof positive that ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young.

0:48:270:48:32

Here is the baby, just at the moment that it's leaving the birth canal.

0:48:340:48:39

It comes out tail first and as soon as it was freed,

0:48:390:48:44

it would have risen to the surface to take its first breath.

0:48:440:48:49

But something happened before that did

0:48:490:48:52

and here is the proof.

0:48:520:48:55

Whatever it was, death must have been instant.

0:48:560:49:00

So, ichthyosaurs gave birth to live babies,

0:49:030:49:06

just as many sharks do today.

0:49:060:49:09

After several weeks of research,

0:49:300:49:33

the team at Bristol University have managed

0:49:330:49:35

to reconstruct the skull of the temnodontosaurus

0:49:350:49:40

so that they can analyse the power of its jaws.

0:49:400:49:43

How do you assess the strength of this animal's bite?

0:49:440:49:47

Well, the first thing that we need to know

0:49:470:49:49

is the volume of muscle that could fit into the back of the skull.

0:49:490:49:52

So the muscles are attaching round here

0:49:520:49:53

and also there's a group of muscles

0:49:530:49:55

that are attaching further forward here

0:49:550:49:57

and if we know how much muscle volume there is,

0:49:570:49:59

we can estimate how much force that muscle can generate.

0:49:590:50:01

And what did you discover?

0:50:010:50:03

We found out that our upper estimate of bite force

0:50:030:50:06

was around 30,000 Newtons and to put that in a modern day context,

0:50:060:50:09

that's twice as powerful as the largest saltwater crocodile

0:50:090:50:13

-that's been measured.

-Twice as powerful?

-Yeah.

0:50:130:50:16

-So that's enormous, yeah.

-Yeah, it's a very powerful bite force.

0:50:160:50:19

So, this must have been the animal

0:50:280:50:30

with the most powerful bite of its time, mustn't it?

0:50:300:50:33

That's absolutely right, yeah.

0:50:330:50:35

Of its time, it would have been.

0:50:350:50:37

Not only did it have a powerful bite,

0:50:370:50:39

its jaw-closing muscles also attach quite close to the jaw joint.

0:50:390:50:42

Now, normally in animals where that happens,

0:50:420:50:44

they have quite a fast, but less forceful bite,

0:50:440:50:47

but the fact that this animal is actually so big

0:50:470:50:49

means that it has a fast bite,

0:50:490:50:51

but also by virtue of its sheer size,

0:50:510:50:52

it also has quite a powerful bite as well, too,

0:50:520:50:55

so it basically has the best of both worlds.

0:50:550:50:57

-So, this was the king of the Jurassic sea.

-Or queen!

0:50:570:51:00

Sorry!

0:51:000:51:01

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

0:51:040:51:06

So, it seems fairly likely that temnodontosaurus was strong enough

0:51:080:51:12

not only to kill our sea dragon, but to rip its head clean off.

0:51:120:51:17

It must have been a terrifying battle.

0:51:200:51:23

Our investigations have given us

0:52:020:52:05

a pretty good idea of how our sea dragon died.

0:52:050:52:10

But can the reconstruction work

0:52:120:52:14

carried out at Bristol University tell us more about its life?

0:52:140:52:19

All the blocks containing the fossil have now been scanned.

0:52:210:52:25

With those scans,

0:52:250:52:27

the team were able to separate the individual bones

0:52:270:52:30

and then put them back together to create

0:52:300:52:32

a 3D image of the ichthyosaur's body before it was attacked.

0:52:320:52:36

They've added a head

0:52:390:52:41

based on estimates of other ichthyosaur species.

0:52:410:52:44

That's magnificent.

0:52:470:52:49

This is the whole animal

0:52:490:52:50

and we estimate that it may have been up to around 4.5m long.

0:52:500:52:55

Is that bigger than most in Lyme?

0:52:550:52:56

Yes, this is certainly bigger

0:52:560:52:58

than most of the ichthyosaurs that we see at Lyme Regis.

0:52:580:53:00

It looks huge. It looks amazing.

0:53:000:53:02

Here are the forelimbs right at the front

0:53:020:53:04

and we've got hindlimbs here and at the back, we've got a tail bend.

0:53:040:53:08

This is supported by the backbone,

0:53:080:53:10

which extends along the whole length of the body.

0:53:100:53:12

-But that bend is natural, isn't it? That's not a break.

-Yes.

0:53:120:53:15

That gives strength to the lower element of the tail

0:53:150:53:18

for driving it forward.

0:53:180:53:19

Much like a shark,

0:53:190:53:21

the tail bend is the main propulsive organ of the animal.

0:53:210:53:24

So, could this be a new species?

0:53:240:53:27

Yes, these pieces of evidence together

0:53:270:53:29

suggest that it is going to be a new species and it's jolly exciting.

0:53:290:53:33

-They don't come along every day.

-Historic!

-Yes.

0:53:330:53:36

This is wonderful news.

0:53:370:53:40

A sighting by Chris on the beach in Lyme Regis

0:53:400:53:43

has led to the discovery of a new species of ichthyosaur,

0:53:430:53:47

adding to our knowledge of these fascinating creatures.

0:53:470:53:50

It's extraordinary how much you can discover from one single fossil.

0:53:510:53:56

Digital reconstruction has allowed us

0:53:560:53:59

to rebuild this animal to reveal how it looked and how it moved.

0:53:590:54:04

We've discovered, for the first time,

0:54:040:54:07

that this creature was countershaded.

0:54:070:54:10

But that didn't stop it from being attacked.

0:54:100:54:13

By analysing its bones,

0:54:140:54:16

we've been able to work out that its most likely attacker

0:54:160:54:19

was a temnodontosaurus,

0:54:190:54:21

the most ferocious predator of the seas at that time.

0:54:210:54:25

It's been a fascinating journey of discovery, but, for me,

0:54:290:54:33

the real wonder is the bones themselves.

0:54:330:54:37

I can't wait to see what they look like when they're finally cleaned.

0:54:370:54:41

After many months of painstaking and patient preparation,

0:54:530:54:58

Chris and his team have finally completed their work

0:54:580:55:02

on the fossil of our ancient sea dragon.

0:55:020:55:04

Here it is finished.

0:55:160:55:18

Wow!

0:55:200:55:22

It's really beautiful, isn't it?

0:55:220:55:25

-I mean, it is beautiful, that's for sure.

-Thank you.

0:55:250:55:28

-It's a great specimen, isn't it?

-Lovely.

0:55:280:55:31

And how many new species have been discovered in the last 100 years?

0:55:310:55:36

Very few, very, very few

0:55:360:55:38

and it's thrilling to find something that's just never been seen before.

0:55:380:55:42

Well, it was a long time spent

0:55:450:55:47

just revealing the body of this creature,

0:55:470:55:51

but it's also revealed this extraordinary story

0:55:510:55:54

of life and death,

0:55:540:55:56

predator-prey fighting it out in the seas

0:55:560:56:00

200 million years ago just down there.

0:56:000:56:04

Yeah, it's a fantastic story.

0:56:040:56:07

Really, really thrilling and romantic.

0:56:070:56:10

For Chris, this has been a labour of love

0:56:130:56:16

and it's filled in another gap in the palaeontological jigsaw -

0:56:160:56:22

a story that all started

0:56:220:56:24

with an odd-looking boulder on a Dorset beach.

0:56:240:56:28

It's extraordinary to think

0:56:280:56:30

that some 200 million years ago exactly here,

0:56:300:56:36

the greatest predator of its time was swimming around in the sea

0:56:360:56:42

and that's what I really love about fossils and fossil hunting.

0:56:420:56:46

It gives you an extraordinarily vivid insight

0:56:460:56:50

into what the world was like millions of years before

0:56:500:56:55

human beings even appeared on this planet.

0:56:550:56:58

Ichthyosaurs died out around 90 million years ago.

0:57:050:57:10

No-one knows why,

0:57:100:57:12

but standing here and having excavated that spectacular fossil,

0:57:120:57:17

it's not difficult to imagine a time

0:57:170:57:20

when dragons really did rule the seas.

0:57:200:57:24

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