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The remains of a dragon have just been discovered | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
in the cliffs of Dorset on the south-east coast of England - | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
one that has been hidden in the rocks for 200 million years. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:32 | |
It was an enormous marine reptile that ruled the seas | 0:00:34 | 0:00:39 | |
at the same time as the dinosaurs ruled the land. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:44 | |
Scientifically, it's called an ichthyosaur. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
Since Jurassic times, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:54 | |
its fossilized bones have been locked away in these cliffs. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
But now we have a chance to reveal it and its story. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:04 | |
Lots and lots of bone in there. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:06 | |
The bones are so well preserved, it may be able to give us | 0:01:10 | 0:01:14 | |
new insights into the lives of these remarkable creatures. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
Together with a team of scientists, | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
we will reconstruct the skeleton and compare it to animals alive today. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:26 | |
We'll try to understand how it looked. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
We have actual preservation of the skin of our ichthyosaur. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
How extraordinary! | 0:01:36 | 0:01:37 | |
And how it survived in the open ocean. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
Could this be a completely new species of ichthyosaur? | 0:01:43 | 0:01:47 | |
Our search for evidence will lead us | 0:01:49 | 0:01:51 | |
into an intriguing forensic investigation into how it died. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:55 | |
I think you're looking at a 200 million year old murder mystery. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:01 | |
Solving that mystery will throw light on the extraordinary world | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
in the Jurassic seas that once existed just off our shores. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:12 | |
The story of this extraordinary dragon | 0:02:22 | 0:02:25 | |
starts here in Dorset on the south coast of England, | 0:02:25 | 0:02:28 | |
one of the most important geological sites in the world - | 0:02:28 | 0:02:32 | |
the Jurassic Coast. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:34 | |
It stretches for almost 100 miles from Devon to Dorset. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:44 | |
And it was here that the early geologists | 0:02:47 | 0:02:49 | |
first collected evidence that once the world was ruled | 0:02:49 | 0:02:53 | |
by monstrous reptiles, quite unlike anything alive on Earth today. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:58 | |
Evidence of creatures that existed all that time ago | 0:03:05 | 0:03:08 | |
can still be found on these beaches. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:11 | |
Fossil collectors have been coming here for literally centuries | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
and these rapidly eroding cliffs are providing them | 0:03:17 | 0:03:22 | |
with a continuous supply of exciting things to find. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
I started looking for fossils when I was a boy | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
and I've never lost the feeling of excitement | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
and anticipation of what one might discover. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
The commonest fossils here are coiled shells called ammonites | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
and you can find them all over the place. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
There's one here on this boulder. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
You can see the whorls there, | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
but it's mostly been worn away by the sea. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
But sometimes if you're lucky, you can find nodules like this | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
and if you look at them, | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
you can see there's the edge there of an ammonite and if I hit it... | 0:04:04 | 0:04:10 | |
If I put on protective glasses and I hit it, it should... | 0:04:10 | 0:04:14 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
How about that? | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
Wow! | 0:04:21 | 0:04:23 | |
What a find! | 0:04:24 | 0:04:25 | |
Ammonites, in fact, are quite common on this beach, | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
but every now and again, something truly rare | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
and spectacular is found here and quite often by this man - | 0:04:35 | 0:04:41 | |
one of the most skilled fossil hunters I know. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:44 | |
Chris Moore has been collecting fossils here for more than 30 years. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:50 | |
Recently, he came across a boulder | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
which he thought might contain something unusual. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
Back in his workshop, | 0:04:58 | 0:04:59 | |
he exposed a mosaic of small, beautifully preserved bones | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
which he knew straight away were the front fins, | 0:05:03 | 0:05:07 | |
the paddles, of an ichthyosaur. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
But they were unlike any he had ever seen before. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
I still collect fossils. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
I even have the remains of an ichthyosaur - | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
a small one of a kind that's relatively common. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
This was collected by Chris about ten years ago in Dorset. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:42 | |
I never found anything as beautiful as this. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
It's got jaws and it's got teeth and it's got paddles. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
And Dorset was the very first place | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
where they found a really complete skeleton of one of these creatures. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
This is a picture of it, | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
published for the very first time in 1814. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:05 | |
People thought it was some kind of monster, but what was it? | 0:06:05 | 0:06:10 | |
They thought it was a kind of cross between a reptile and a fish | 0:06:10 | 0:06:16 | |
so they called it an ichthyosaur - a fish lizard or sea dragon. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:22 | |
Since that time, many fossil fragments of ichthyosaurs | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
have been discovered on the Jurassic Coast. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:30 | |
But complete skeletons are very rare. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
The particular one that Chris has just found | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
is significantly different from any that's ever been found here before. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
It's not easy to get to the beach where it was discovered. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
At high tide, the only way to do so is by boat. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:56 | |
I asked Chris where the rest of the skeleton might still lie. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:05 | |
It's in the very top limestone bed | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
where the cliffs are at the lowest point. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
It's got about two metres on top of clay | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
and we'll have to clear this material off | 0:07:13 | 0:07:15 | |
till we get to the limestone bed. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
It' a lot of hard work. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:18 | |
It's a lot of digging, yeah, and also we have to do it, really, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
before the winter turns again and the weather gets bad | 0:07:21 | 0:07:25 | |
because there's a chance that the next landslip | 0:07:25 | 0:07:27 | |
will just push it off onto the beach and destroy it. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
In Jurassic times, sea covered all this area. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
On its floor, sediments washed down from the land | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
turned into layers of shales and limestone. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
The land rose, the sea retreated | 0:07:47 | 0:07:50 | |
and now in the rocks, | 0:07:50 | 0:07:52 | |
you can find the remains of the creatures | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
that once lived in those ancient waters. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
As well as the remains of ammonites, there are the bones of fish, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
such as sharks. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:06 | |
But the top predators at this time were reptiles - ichthyosaurs. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:14 | |
They dominated the seas for more than 150 million years. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:23 | |
After getting permission to dig, | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
the team clamber down the cliff to the particular layer | 0:08:36 | 0:08:40 | |
where the rest of our ichthyosaur skeleton should be lying. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
I'm going to need at least another metre, | 0:08:43 | 0:08:45 | |
cos I need to drop down to the next bit. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:46 | |
It's dangerous work. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:51 | |
These cliffs occasionally collapse without warning. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
To make sure that they don't damage any of the fossils, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
the team do all the digging by hand. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
There's just loads of roots. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
Tonnes of clay have to be removed before they even reach | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
the layer of limestone where they hope | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
the rest of the bones still lie. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
Wayhey! | 0:09:21 | 0:09:23 | |
It was on this very coast | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
that the first complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur was discovered. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:32 | |
It was found in the 19th century | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
by a remarkable woman called Mary Anning. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
Mary lived in the little town of Lyme Regis, | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
the daughter of a cabinet maker who collected fossils as a hobby. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:49 | |
When Mary was only 11, her father died | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
so she and her brother started selling fossils to visitors | 0:09:54 | 0:09:58 | |
to support their widowed mother. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
Lyme Regis Museum now devotes a whole gallery to her and her finds. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:14 | |
Mary had an extraordinary talent for finding fossils and in 1811, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:22 | |
she discovered this gigantic creature, | 0:10:22 | 0:10:26 | |
the like of which no-one had ever seen before. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
Dinosaurs had not yet been discovered. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
No-one had any idea that way back in pre-history, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
there were such gigantic creatures, | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
so this caused a sensation. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
It was then that the popular name "sea dragon" | 0:10:45 | 0:10:48 | |
was given to these prehistoric monsters. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
Scientists speculated on how they lived | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
and artists tried to imagine what they must have looked like | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
and how they behaved. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
Back at the cliff face, Chris and his team are hard at it. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:14 | |
But they haven't found any more bones. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:19 | |
This is a massive piece. Tombstone! | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
Right, ready? | 0:11:31 | 0:11:32 | |
Chris is convinced that the skeleton to which the paddles belonged | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
must be somewhere here and they check every rock. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:39 | |
Beautiful shale! | 0:11:39 | 0:11:42 | |
-Lovely! -Anything interesting? -Moment of truth... | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
Nothing. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
-Just push it off. -Yeah. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
Is there anything showing? | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
Nothing else here. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
Oh, gosh, that's hard work. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
I hope there's something here. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
I almost don't want to look! | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
-Ah! -What have you found? | 0:12:20 | 0:12:21 | |
-There's a bone. -Loads of bone going all the way... There's bone there. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
-There's something here! -HE LAUGHS | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
At long last, the team's efforts are rewarded. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:34 | |
We've got some bones here! | 0:12:34 | 0:12:37 | |
-There's loads of bones. -Fantastic! | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
Ah! What's this? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
Is that a vertebrae? | 0:12:42 | 0:12:44 | |
But the bones are not in the position | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
the team had expected to find them. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
Instead of lying across the face of the cliff, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
the skeleton seems to be bending back into it. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
We're going to have to go down through there. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
It means much more work. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
And to make matters worse, a storm is brewing. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
The rain is just starting, | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
but I think we've got to make a bit of a run for it. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
We won't be working any more in this for the moment. It's torrential. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:25 | |
Beautiful rainbow, though. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
A rainbow will be little comfort if the storm persists. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
Rough seas and heavy downpours can cause landslips, | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
which could easily destroy any chance of retrieving the bones. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
It was after just such a storm that Chris found the front limbs, | 0:13:44 | 0:13:48 | |
the paddles of our sea dragon. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:51 | |
They convinced him that the fossil was something special. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
VOICEOVER: You can see why when you compare them | 0:13:56 | 0:13:59 | |
VOICEOVER: to the paddles of the kind of ichthyosaur | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
VOICEOVER: that's usually found here. | 0:14:02 | 0:14:03 | |
This is an adult and this is the paddle of this creature | 0:14:03 | 0:14:08 | |
and if you compare it to this one... | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
-Oh, it's huge. Oh, yeah. -I've never seen anything quite like it. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:21 | |
There are half a dozen rows of digits there and how many there? | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
I think there's at least nine or ten crossways | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
and obviously, you know, many more in length. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:30 | |
It's getting on for twice the number of digits. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
-And the whole shape of the fin is completely... -Quite different. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
And must be new, therefore? | 0:14:36 | 0:14:38 | |
-I think so. I've never seen anything quite like it. -How exciting! | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
VOICEOVER: It's extremely rare to find | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
VOICEOVER: a new species of ichthyosaur these days. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:48 | |
Only nine have been discovered here in the last 200 years. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:53 | |
But can these strange paddles tell us something | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
about how this odd ichthyosaur lived? | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
To try and find out, we are going to construct a three-dimensional model. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:05 | |
To do that, we first need to have the paddles scanned. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:11 | |
So, Chris is taking them to Southampton University. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
Here, the engineering department has one of the largest | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
high resolution scanners in the country. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
It's not every day someone walks in | 0:15:29 | 0:15:30 | |
with a 200-million-year-old sea reptile. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:34 | |
The machine can scan objects of all different shapes and sizes | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
from ancient coins to the components of spacecraft. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
To create a picture, the scanner takes thousands of X-ray images | 0:15:53 | 0:15:57 | |
in cross sections through the fossil as it rotates. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
It's not long before the first images appear. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
That's amazing. It looks really clear. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
You can even see the bones laying underneath the paddle. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
At the moment, we're just doing one section. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
We're going to do multiple scans down the specimen | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
and build it all back together into a three-dimensional volume. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:26 | |
The scans of the paddles are sent to Bristol University. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:31 | |
Here, scientists can isolate the image of each bone within the rock | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
and then assemble them to create a detailed three-dimensional model. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:41 | |
The team is particularly excited by the shape | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
and structure of these paddles and I've come to find out why. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
We've got a complete paddle here taken from the bones itself, | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
fully reconstructed, rearticulated | 0:16:58 | 0:17:01 | |
so this is as close as we can get to what it would have looked like. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
We can actually start using this paddle to try and tell us | 0:17:03 | 0:17:07 | |
what species it might have been. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
Because of the size of the paddle | 0:17:09 | 0:17:11 | |
and the way that some of these bones articulate with each other, | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
it's different to other ichthyosaurus | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
and so this could be a new species. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:18 | |
-That would be great. -It would be jolly exciting. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:20 | |
VOICEOVER: We won't know for sure until we find the rest of the body, | 0:17:20 | 0:17:25 | |
but can the paddles tell us something | 0:17:25 | 0:17:27 | |
about the way in which this creature swam? | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
There are a lot of bones in this paddle, | 0:17:30 | 0:17:32 | |
which would have been good for holding steady | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
and also for allowing it to be manoeuvrable in the water. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
-There would have been cartilage round that, wouldn't there? -Yes. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:41 | |
All of the gaps between the bones | 0:17:41 | 0:17:42 | |
would have been filled in with cartilage | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
and even further around the paddle itself, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
giving it a paddle-like shape, giving it a cross section | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
a bit like an aerofoil | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
so that it could cut straight through the water. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:52 | |
-Could they fold them in to the side? -Probably not. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
Looking at the muscles and where they attach, | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
it suggests these are moving up and down, | 0:17:59 | 0:18:01 | |
helping it to turn very quickly | 0:18:01 | 0:18:02 | |
or keeping it on the straight and narrow | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
when it wants to be a little more sedate. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
The shape of the paddles and the way they moved | 0:18:12 | 0:18:14 | |
seems very like the way an animal alive today uses its paddles. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:20 | |
That animal usually lives in tropical waters | 0:18:21 | 0:18:24 | |
like these in the Caribbean. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:26 | |
The sea here is warm | 0:18:28 | 0:18:29 | |
with temperatures much like they would have been | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
in Jurassic times around Britain. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
And the animal in question... | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
is the dolphin. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:40 | |
Dolphins, of course, are mammals, not reptiles like ichthyosaurs. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:48 | |
Nonetheless, the two groups have bodies shaped in very similar ways. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:54 | |
The front fins or paddles of both | 0:18:57 | 0:18:59 | |
would have helped to steady themselves | 0:18:59 | 0:19:01 | |
as they turn and cut through the water. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:03 | |
And both have similar dorsal fins. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:09 | |
So, although they lived 200 million years apart, | 0:19:11 | 0:19:13 | |
dolphins and ichthyosaurs share many physical characteristics | 0:19:13 | 0:19:19 | |
and that's because they evolved in similar ways | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
as a response to a similar environment. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
Like dolphins, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
ichthyosaurs evolved from ancestors that had once lived on land. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
As they became adapted to life in water, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
they lost the ability to walk, | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
their bodies became more streamlined | 0:19:46 | 0:19:48 | |
and their forelimbs turned into paddles to help them swim. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:52 | |
But ichthyosaurs do differ from dolphins in two striking ways. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
Dolphins have tails that are flattened horizontally | 0:20:05 | 0:20:09 | |
and they drive themselves forward by beating their tails up and down. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:14 | |
But we know from their fossils that ichthyosaur tails | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
were flattened vertically like those of sharks, | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
so they must have swum in the same sort of way | 0:20:22 | 0:20:24 | |
by sweeping their tails from side to side. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
Ichthyosaurs, unlike dolphins, also had back paddles. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:37 | |
They, too, would have helped stabilise them as they swam. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:41 | |
And what's more, the paddles of our ichthyosaur | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
are particularly large and long, | 0:20:49 | 0:20:51 | |
rather like those of the oceanic whitetip shark. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:56 | |
That shape helps the whitetip to cruise for long distances | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
with very little expenditure of energy in their search for food. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:08 | |
So, it could be that our ichthyosaur was also a long-distance traveller | 0:21:13 | 0:21:18 | |
and only an infrequent visitor to the Lyme Regis seas, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:23 | |
which could be why no-one has ever found one of these here before. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:28 | |
Back at the dig site, the rain has stopped at last. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:39 | |
But the storm is a reminder that winter is on its way. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:46 | |
The team must try to extract the rest of the dragon's body | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
before worse weather arrives. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
That's how hard the rock is. | 0:21:55 | 0:21:56 | |
It's actually smashed the end off the chisel. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
So, you can see what we're dealing with. | 0:21:58 | 0:22:01 | |
At last, they find signs of the rest of the skeleton. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
-Lots and lots of bone in there. -Yeah. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
Ribs and all sorts of stuff. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
And there's another particularly exciting discovery. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
-Is there skin? -Yeah, look. -Oh, really? | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
They've found signs of fossilized skin. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
Rare, isn't it? | 0:22:32 | 0:22:34 | |
Yeah, very rare. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:35 | |
The blocks that contain bones and skin | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
can't be thrown down like the other rocks. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
They must be carefully strapped up and gently lowered. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:48 | |
That's the first block down. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:52 | |
A few more to go, but if they go like that, I'll be very pleased. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:55 | |
Two weeks after they started work, I go down again to check on progress. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:02 | |
-How's it going? -Well, quite well so far. -A lot shifted. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:09 | |
-Yeah, about 20 tonnes of it, I think. -Really? -Yes. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:12 | |
How's it doing? Is it caught? | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
-No, it's OK. -It's OK? Yeah. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:18 | |
What do you reckon's in it? | 0:23:18 | 0:23:20 | |
This block's got vertebrae, the other part of the ribcage | 0:23:20 | 0:23:24 | |
and it's definitely got the back paddles in there. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:27 | |
You can see a cross section through them. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
VOICEOVER: While the team continue lowering the huge blocks, | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
VOICEOVER: Chris shows me what they've already collected. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:35 | |
So, lots over here. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:38 | |
-Ah, well, I can see something there. -Ah! | 0:23:38 | 0:23:42 | |
-That's more obvious, yeah. -Yeah. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:44 | |
Here, you can see, glinting in the sunlight, | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
sections through the backbone, the vertebral column. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
Wow! | 0:23:52 | 0:23:53 | |
And these are the ribs that are still attached to the vertebrae | 0:23:53 | 0:23:58 | |
and these are the neurals | 0:23:58 | 0:24:00 | |
that come off the backbone. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:01 | |
The spines off the top of the back. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
-Yeah, but they've actually got skin preserved on them. -No, really? -Yeah. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
-Can you see that here? -Well, that's the very black. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
You can see it on the impression as well. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:12 | |
VOICEOVER: This is great news, but something puzzles me. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:16 | |
Would the head have been on this side or that side? | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
Most likely here in this next slab. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
-And it's not there? -Not so far. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
Oh, boy! | 0:24:27 | 0:24:29 | |
How many more tonnes to go? | 0:24:29 | 0:24:31 | |
HE SIGHS, THEY LAUGH | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
-Only a few! -THEY LAUGH | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
OK. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
Once the blocks are down on the beach, | 0:24:50 | 0:24:52 | |
the team remove as much excess limestone as possible | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
to make them lighter. | 0:24:56 | 0:24:58 | |
Even then, they're extremely heavy | 0:24:58 | 0:25:01 | |
so to get them back to Lyme Regis, | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
they're loaded onto a pontoon and towed back by boat. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:07 | |
So, for the first time in 200 million years, | 0:25:25 | 0:25:30 | |
our strange ichthyosaur once again takes to the water. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:35 | |
The dig may be over, | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
but the investigation is only just beginning. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
WHIRRING | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
Now, the work becomes more delicate, involving not sledgehammers, | 0:25:54 | 0:25:58 | |
but small vibrating chisels | 0:25:58 | 0:26:00 | |
that chip off the limestone in tiny flakes. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
It's detailed work that will take months to complete. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:12 | |
It's like a jigsaw puzzle of things you can't see. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:17 | |
It's almost forensic. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:20 | |
You don't know the story, you don't know what's inside the block | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
until you reveal it. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
I've never seen in all my years an ichthyosaur that looked like this | 0:26:29 | 0:26:33 | |
so every other part of the skeleton that we reveal | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
is very exciting cos you're never quite sure what's going on, | 0:26:36 | 0:26:40 | |
what it's going to look like and it is, it's very different. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:45 | |
Day after day and week after week, | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
Chris and his team work patiently to expose more of the skeleton. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:55 | |
And as they do so, the bones reveal something very intriguing. | 0:26:56 | 0:27:01 | |
I've come down to Chris' workshop to take a look. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:07 | |
It's a bit of squeeze past the plesiosaur. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:13 | |
VOICEOVER: It really is an Aladdin's cave. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
VOICEOVER; After weeks of work, | 0:27:20 | 0:27:21 | |
VOICEOVER: Chris has exposed the backbones and ribs. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:25 | |
So, this is it so far. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:28 | |
VOICEOVER: And in doing so, he's made a startling discovery. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:32 | |
It looks like it's been attacked. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:34 | |
-Gosh! -There's breakages all through the ribcage. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
If you follow one rib, you go along here, down to here, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
then this piece corresponds to this, which then goes over to here | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
so one rib is now broken into three pieces. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:50 | |
How extraordinary! But what's happened here? | 0:27:50 | 0:27:54 | |
Here, the vertebral column's been actually pulled away. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:59 | |
I'm fairly positive it was done in life and the paddles, | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
the flippers have been ripped off. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
Where would they go? | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
But they're in a very odd position, aren't they? | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
I mean, they're pointing in the wrong direction. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
They should be basically in this position | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
and facing the other way up | 0:28:24 | 0:28:25 | |
and they've been ripped off and turned over. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:29 | |
Gosh! | 0:28:29 | 0:28:30 | |
Well, where was the head? | 0:28:31 | 0:28:33 | |
The head should be here. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:35 | |
-That's the very last vertebrae. -Back of the neck? -Yeah. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
So, the head's been torn off and there's no evidence. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
There's no teeth or pieces of bone. It's completely gone. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:47 | |
-So, it's a murder. -Yes! -Really? | 0:28:47 | 0:28:52 | |
Yeah, I think it was killed. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:53 | |
-Did this predator crunch the head, do you think? -Who knows? | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
It's 200 millions years ago, | 0:28:57 | 0:28:59 | |
so it's a bit of guesswork, really, isn't it? | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
So, it's a murder story without a complete body yet. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:06 | |
To find out more, we need to reveal the rest of the skeleton. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
So it's all hands on deck. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:17 | |
They've even roped me in. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
This is more difficult than it looks. | 0:29:44 | 0:29:48 | |
Very good! | 0:29:52 | 0:29:54 | |
Could you start on three days a week? | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
-Is it all right? -It's good, yeah. -I haven't gone too close to the bone? | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
-No, no. -Phew, that's a relief! | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
But what of the missing head? | 0:30:08 | 0:30:10 | |
If it was ripped off, | 0:30:12 | 0:30:13 | |
Chris thinks he might still be able to find it | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
somewhere on the beach, | 0:30:16 | 0:30:18 | |
so at every opportunity, | 0:30:18 | 0:30:20 | |
he scours the area where the first block was found. | 0:30:20 | 0:30:24 | |
The best time to look is after a storm | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
when a strong sea has moved sand and shingle | 0:30:31 | 0:30:33 | |
and perhaps revealed the rocks beneath. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:36 | |
To try and deduce just how our ichthyosaur met its fate, | 0:30:50 | 0:30:55 | |
we've sent images of the fossil to someone who specialises | 0:30:55 | 0:31:00 | |
in investigating the cause of death in prehistoric animals. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
You sent me some photographs and I had a look at some of these breaks. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:08 | |
Now, first of all, I noticed this, here. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:11 | |
If you look, you can just see this bulbous piece on the rib here. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:15 | |
This is where the rib has healed after a break | 0:31:15 | 0:31:17 | |
and the animal's gone on to live another day. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:20 | |
There's a bite mark here that runs all the way up the paddle bones. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:25 | |
You can see that it's healed as well. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:27 | |
Yeah, it's definitely an old injury. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:28 | |
-This animal's had a little bit of a bad start in life. -Yeah. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:32 | |
But some of the other breaks tell a different story. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
If you look down here and especially this one, | 0:31:36 | 0:31:39 | |
this fracture here mirrors that fracture there | 0:31:39 | 0:31:42 | |
and then we can see a whole line of fractures | 0:31:42 | 0:31:47 | |
where there's no new bone growth. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:49 | |
Something has actually crushed this ribcage. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:52 | |
So look here at these neural spines. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
These are absolutely perfect | 0:31:55 | 0:31:57 | |
and then from here, they're broken all the way down to here. | 0:31:57 | 0:32:01 | |
This is the last one that's broken and then here, | 0:32:01 | 0:32:04 | |
they're perfect again. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:05 | |
So, there to there is damaged. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
On the ribs, there to there is damaged and here, too, | 0:32:09 | 0:32:12 | |
and also on some of these belly ribs | 0:32:12 | 0:32:15 | |
so I think there's a bite which goes right across here. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:19 | |
That probably reflects the width of the skull of the animal that bit it. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:24 | |
Yeah, yeah. So it came in across here, almost. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:27 | |
Somewhere like that, yeah. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:29 | |
There was a massive bite, it caused catastrophic injury | 0:32:29 | 0:32:33 | |
and, remember, the ribcage is protecting lungs. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:35 | |
This was an air-breathing marine animal and as a swimmer, | 0:32:35 | 0:32:40 | |
these lungs are vital not just for breathing, but for its buoyancy. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
So, once this ribcage is punctured and the lungs are punctured, | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
this animal is dead. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:49 | |
It can't breathe | 0:32:49 | 0:32:50 | |
and also it's going to sink straight down to the sea floor as well. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
It's quite likely that the animal that killed this animal, | 0:32:53 | 0:32:57 | |
presumably it was looking for food, | 0:32:57 | 0:32:59 | |
it didn't get to eat it. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:01 | |
Oh, no, I think it just killed it. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:03 | |
It didn't eat it, or else it wouldn't be so intact. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:05 | |
So this probably all took place in the surface water, | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
but as soon as it's done this injury, | 0:33:08 | 0:33:10 | |
this thing just sank like a stone straight down to the sea floor | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
and then it was lost to the animal that was trying to eat it. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:17 | |
So, it looks as if Chris' attack theory might be right. | 0:33:17 | 0:33:21 | |
But what type of creature could possibly have inflicted | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
so much damage to our sea dragon? | 0:33:26 | 0:33:29 | |
A rather unusual fossil in Chris' collection might give us a clue. | 0:33:30 | 0:33:35 | |
This is fossilised ichthyosaur droppings called a coprolite | 0:33:41 | 0:33:48 | |
and what makes it particularly interesting | 0:33:48 | 0:33:50 | |
is that within this piece of dung, you can see fish scales. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:56 | |
So, that shows that ichthyosaurs were fish eaters, | 0:33:59 | 0:34:04 | |
but more than that, this one is even more interesting | 0:34:04 | 0:34:09 | |
because in this piece of dung, there are teeth - ichthyosaur teeth. | 0:34:09 | 0:34:17 | |
So, the animal that produced this was almost certainly a cannibal. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:23 | |
It ate other ichthyosaur species. | 0:34:23 | 0:34:27 | |
Could it be that our dragon was killed by one of its own kind? | 0:34:28 | 0:34:33 | |
To find out more, | 0:34:40 | 0:34:42 | |
I've come to the Natural History Museum of Stuttgart in Germany. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
Here, they have one of the most impressive | 0:34:50 | 0:34:52 | |
and varied collections of ichthyosaurs in the world. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:57 | |
They came in all shapes and sizes, | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
but of all the ichthyosaurs that existed 200 million years ago, | 0:35:02 | 0:35:08 | |
there was one which was particularly fearsome. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
This is temnodontosaurus, | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
one of the biggest of the sea dragons so far discovered. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
They grew up to 10m long | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
and individual bones have been discovered which suggest | 0:35:30 | 0:35:34 | |
that they could grow even bigger than that. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
The remains of these terrifying sea monsters | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
were discovered in a quarry just outside Stuttgart. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
These are the biggest complete temnodontosaurus fossils ever found. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:51 | |
This huge predator had the largest eye known of any animal, | 0:35:54 | 0:36:01 | |
which would have given it extremely acute eyesight. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:04 | |
Not only that, but the eye was surrounded | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
by a ring of scutes - bony plates - | 0:36:07 | 0:36:11 | |
to protect it from the water pressure at depth. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
So, with eyes the size of footballs, | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
this monster was able to hunt at all depths of the Jurassic ocean. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:24 | |
It also had rows of sharp teeth | 0:36:33 | 0:36:38 | |
that would have allowed it to rip apart almost anything. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
These teeth are shaped like blades, well suited for cutting into flesh. | 0:36:43 | 0:36:49 | |
And here's another specimen of temnodontosaurus | 0:36:51 | 0:36:55 | |
that is proof positive that it really was a hunter. | 0:36:55 | 0:36:59 | |
Here is its stomach and inside its stomach, | 0:37:00 | 0:37:04 | |
you can see these tiny little circular bones, | 0:37:04 | 0:37:08 | |
which are the backbones, the vertebrae, of a baby ichthyosaur. | 0:37:08 | 0:37:13 | |
So we now know that temnodontosaurus | 0:37:14 | 0:37:18 | |
could devour young ichthyosaurs, | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
but would one have been capable | 0:37:21 | 0:37:23 | |
of eating an adult ichthyosaur like ours? | 0:37:23 | 0:37:27 | |
Fossils of temnodontosaurus have been found in other regions, | 0:37:28 | 0:37:32 | |
including our own Jurassic Coast. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
So, this monster could well be our prime suspect. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:42 | |
To build our case further, | 0:37:43 | 0:37:46 | |
we're going to analyse another specimen of the same species | 0:37:46 | 0:37:49 | |
that was found on the Jurassic Coast. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
This is the skull of a temnodontosaurus | 0:37:54 | 0:37:58 | |
and as you can see, it's huge. | 0:37:58 | 0:38:01 | |
This specimen was found by Mary Anning | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
on the Dorset coast in the 19th century | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
and we are hoping that we may be able to use it | 0:38:08 | 0:38:11 | |
with the latest techniques | 0:38:11 | 0:38:13 | |
to tell us just how powerful these great jaws could be. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:19 | |
So, for the first time ever, our team of scientists | 0:38:19 | 0:38:22 | |
are going to attempt to calculate | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
the bite strength of a temnodontosaurus. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
The first step is to scan the skull. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:32 | |
Not as easy as it sounds. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
Very few scanners are big enough, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:40 | |
but there's one here at the Royal Veterinary College, | 0:38:40 | 0:38:42 | |
where they're more accustomed to scanning horses. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
The temnodontosaurus skull is 2m long and weighs more than 200kg. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:57 | |
Luckily, it's in two pieces. | 0:38:59 | 0:39:01 | |
Otherwise it couldn't be fitted into even this huge scanner. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:05 | |
OK. One, two, three and up. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
These scans will help the team | 0:39:22 | 0:39:25 | |
to not only reconstruct the temnodontosaurus' skull, | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
but also work out the size of its jaw muscles. | 0:39:28 | 0:39:32 | |
They can then assess the power of this huge predator's bite | 0:39:32 | 0:39:36 | |
and see if it was strong enough to kill our ichthyosaur. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:41 | |
Temnodontosaurs are unusual | 0:39:42 | 0:39:44 | |
in that they had huge, sharp teeth for cutting through flesh, | 0:39:44 | 0:39:48 | |
but how did other ichthyosaurs catch their prey? | 0:39:48 | 0:39:52 | |
To get a clue, I've come to see a modern day predator in action. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:57 | |
That is a gharial crocodile from Indonesia. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:15 | |
Its jaws, as you can see, are not wide and flat | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
like an African crocodile's, | 0:40:20 | 0:40:22 | |
but long and thin and because of that shape, | 0:40:22 | 0:40:26 | |
there's very little resistance to the water | 0:40:26 | 0:40:28 | |
so they can snatch fish, which they do very effectively. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:32 | |
They're very formidable animals indeed. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:39 | |
Ichthyosaurs must have fed in much the same way as that. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:59 | |
Their jaws were very similar to those of the gharial - | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
simple studs to grip the prey, no need to chew it | 0:41:03 | 0:41:08 | |
because the jaws at the back were quite big enough | 0:41:08 | 0:41:11 | |
to enable the animal to swallow their prey whole, | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
just as the gharial does. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:16 | |
Gharials regularly shed their teeth | 0:41:22 | 0:41:25 | |
and here's one I've just picked out of this pool. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:28 | |
You can see that they're very simple teeth, just like ichthyosaur teeth. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:33 | |
But that's all you need if all you have to do is to grab a fish. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:37 | |
So, it's likely that our ichthyosaur had teeth and jaws specially adapted | 0:41:46 | 0:41:51 | |
to catch small, slippery fish and squid, | 0:41:51 | 0:41:54 | |
just like a gharial crocodile. | 0:41:54 | 0:41:58 | |
Back in Lyme Regis, the work on the bones has taken a dramatic turn. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:07 | |
Chris has found that there is fossilized skin | 0:42:09 | 0:42:13 | |
over nearly the whole skeleton. | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
It seems to be virtually covering the whole thing. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:18 | |
It's rare to find any sign whatever of skin on fossils, | 0:42:20 | 0:42:23 | |
let alone so much of it. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:25 | |
Fiann Smithwick, an expert on fossilized skin, | 0:42:26 | 0:42:30 | |
has come to take a sample back to his lab. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:33 | |
We can look and see if there's any evidence | 0:42:33 | 0:42:35 | |
of the original pigment preserved in the skin. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:37 | |
-Oh, that's a lovely piece. -That's really good. That'll be perfect. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:41 | |
Fiann hopes that this remarkably preserved sample | 0:42:41 | 0:42:45 | |
might tell us what the skin looked like and even what colour it was. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:49 | |
At the University of Bristol, | 0:42:50 | 0:42:52 | |
he places a tiny sample of the fossilized skin in a machine | 0:42:52 | 0:42:57 | |
that coats its surface with minute particles of gold. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:01 | |
They will reflect the rays of a scanning electron microscope. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:17 | |
It's astonishing that you can actually see | 0:43:21 | 0:43:24 | |
the remains of skin on such an ancient fossil. | 0:43:24 | 0:43:26 | |
But this microscope can also magnify its structure | 0:43:32 | 0:43:35 | |
tens of thousands of times. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:37 | |
Here, we have an exceptional level of preservation of the skin | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
of our ichthyosaur, despite being 200 million years old, | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
so the structures we're looking at here | 0:43:52 | 0:43:54 | |
are around half a micrometre across | 0:43:54 | 0:43:56 | |
and a micrometre is one millionth of a metre | 0:43:56 | 0:43:58 | |
and you see here these little granules | 0:43:58 | 0:44:01 | |
and these are preserved melanosomes. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:04 | |
Now, melanosomes contain the pigment that you have in mammal hair, | 0:44:04 | 0:44:08 | |
in bird feathers and in reptile skin and the abundance of them | 0:44:08 | 0:44:12 | |
and the distribution of them can tell us | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
about the overall colour patterns of the animal. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
So, having a high abundance means you're likely to be darker | 0:44:16 | 0:44:18 | |
and having a low abundance means you're likely to be lighter. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:21 | |
This area has come from the back. | 0:44:21 | 0:44:24 | |
There's a large abundance of these melanosomes. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:26 | |
There's a lot of pigment here | 0:44:26 | 0:44:27 | |
and when we look at samples | 0:44:27 | 0:44:29 | |
that have come from the bottom of the animal, | 0:44:29 | 0:44:31 | |
we don't see this pigment in this level of abundance | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
so it most likely had a much darker back than it did a belly | 0:44:34 | 0:44:38 | |
and this conforms to a type of colour pattern | 0:44:38 | 0:44:40 | |
known as countershading in modern animals. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
You can see countershading in lots of sea animals today. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:48 | |
Great white sharks, for example. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
Both predators and prey are coloured in this way. | 0:44:56 | 0:45:00 | |
It makes them more difficult to see both from above and below. | 0:45:00 | 0:45:04 | |
So, this is the first time that we've actually seen | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
evidence of a countershaded pattern in an ichthyosaur. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
So, that really is a step forward in our knowledge. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:15 | |
It is and it can tell us | 0:45:15 | 0:45:16 | |
a huge amount about the way the animal might have lived. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:19 | |
Just from looking at that picture? | 0:45:19 | 0:45:20 | |
-Just from looking at these melanosomes. -Great! | 0:45:20 | 0:45:24 | |
Today, countershaded animals tend to live in open water | 0:45:28 | 0:45:32 | |
where there's good visibility. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:34 | |
Ichthyosaurs also lived in the open seas | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
so being camouflaged in this way | 0:45:39 | 0:45:41 | |
would have been very valuable to them. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:43 | |
The latest scientific research suggests that countershading | 0:45:49 | 0:45:53 | |
might also protect against ultraviolet light | 0:45:53 | 0:45:57 | |
and even help to regulate body temperature. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:00 | |
As an air-breathing creature, | 0:46:04 | 0:46:06 | |
our ichthyosaur would have had to spend much time near the surface. | 0:46:06 | 0:46:11 | |
So countershading could have been a benefit for that reason as well. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:15 | |
There are, of course, | 0:46:23 | 0:46:25 | |
many marine reptiles still living in the oceans today, like turtles. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:31 | |
The biggest of them is the leatherback, | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
whose ancestors, in fact, were around | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
at the same time as the ichthyosaurs. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
Today, they come ashore to nest in many places, | 0:46:42 | 0:46:46 | |
including the Caribbean. | 0:46:46 | 0:46:47 | |
This huge leatherback turtle is laying her eggs. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:54 | |
She's hauled her way up from the sea and dug a hole | 0:46:54 | 0:46:59 | |
and now she's depositing about 100 of them. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:03 | |
She'll then fill in the hole | 0:47:05 | 0:47:07 | |
and then work her way down back to the sea. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:11 | |
It's clearly a very laborious process. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:15 | |
And that's the challenge facing all reptiles that live in the sea - | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
having to come onto land to lay eggs. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:25 | |
Ichthyosaurs were reptiles and they lived in the sea, | 0:47:27 | 0:47:32 | |
but they were so well adapted to a life at sea, | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
that they gave birth to live young | 0:47:35 | 0:47:39 | |
and that would have saved the sea dragons | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
making the dangerous journey onto land. | 0:47:41 | 0:47:44 | |
There is remarkable evidence that ichthyosaurs gave birth | 0:47:47 | 0:47:51 | |
to live young in the Stuttgart museum. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:53 | |
And here is a truly extraordinary, beautiful, almost poignant fossil - | 0:48:20 | 0:48:27 | |
proof positive that ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:32 | |
Here is the baby, just at the moment that it's leaving the birth canal. | 0:48:34 | 0:48:39 | |
It comes out tail first and as soon as it was freed, | 0:48:39 | 0:48:44 | |
it would have risen to the surface to take its first breath. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:49 | |
But something happened before that did | 0:48:49 | 0:48:52 | |
and here is the proof. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:55 | |
Whatever it was, death must have been instant. | 0:48:56 | 0:49:00 | |
So, ichthyosaurs gave birth to live babies, | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
just as many sharks do today. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:09 | |
After several weeks of research, | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
the team at Bristol University have managed | 0:49:33 | 0:49:35 | |
to reconstruct the skull of the temnodontosaurus | 0:49:35 | 0:49:40 | |
so that they can analyse the power of its jaws. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:43 | |
How do you assess the strength of this animal's bite? | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
Well, the first thing that we need to know | 0:49:47 | 0:49:49 | |
is the volume of muscle that could fit into the back of the skull. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:52 | |
So the muscles are attaching round here | 0:49:52 | 0:49:53 | |
and also there's a group of muscles | 0:49:53 | 0:49:55 | |
that are attaching further forward here | 0:49:55 | 0:49:57 | |
and if we know how much muscle volume there is, | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
we can estimate how much force that muscle can generate. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:01 | |
And what did you discover? | 0:50:01 | 0:50:03 | |
We found out that our upper estimate of bite force | 0:50:03 | 0:50:06 | |
was around 30,000 Newtons and to put that in a modern day context, | 0:50:06 | 0:50:09 | |
that's twice as powerful as the largest saltwater crocodile | 0:50:09 | 0:50:13 | |
-that's been measured. -Twice as powerful? -Yeah. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
-So that's enormous, yeah. -Yeah, it's a very powerful bite force. | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
So, this must have been the animal | 0:50:28 | 0:50:30 | |
with the most powerful bite of its time, mustn't it? | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
That's absolutely right, yeah. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:35 | |
Of its time, it would have been. | 0:50:35 | 0:50:37 | |
Not only did it have a powerful bite, | 0:50:37 | 0:50:39 | |
its jaw-closing muscles also attach quite close to the jaw joint. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
Now, normally in animals where that happens, | 0:50:42 | 0:50:44 | |
they have quite a fast, but less forceful bite, | 0:50:44 | 0:50:47 | |
but the fact that this animal is actually so big | 0:50:47 | 0:50:49 | |
means that it has a fast bite, | 0:50:49 | 0:50:51 | |
but also by virtue of its sheer size, | 0:50:51 | 0:50:52 | |
it also has quite a powerful bite as well, too, | 0:50:52 | 0:50:55 | |
so it basically has the best of both worlds. | 0:50:55 | 0:50:57 | |
-So, this was the king of the Jurassic sea. -Or queen! | 0:50:57 | 0:51:00 | |
Sorry! | 0:51:00 | 0:51:01 | |
-Yeah. -Yeah. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:06 | |
So, it seems fairly likely that temnodontosaurus was strong enough | 0:51:08 | 0:51:12 | |
not only to kill our sea dragon, but to rip its head clean off. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:17 | |
It must have been a terrifying battle. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:23 | |
Our investigations have given us | 0:52:02 | 0:52:05 | |
a pretty good idea of how our sea dragon died. | 0:52:05 | 0:52:10 | |
But can the reconstruction work | 0:52:12 | 0:52:14 | |
carried out at Bristol University tell us more about its life? | 0:52:14 | 0:52:19 | |
All the blocks containing the fossil have now been scanned. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:25 | |
With those scans, | 0:52:25 | 0:52:27 | |
the team were able to separate the individual bones | 0:52:27 | 0:52:30 | |
and then put them back together to create | 0:52:30 | 0:52:32 | |
a 3D image of the ichthyosaur's body before it was attacked. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:36 | |
They've added a head | 0:52:39 | 0:52:41 | |
based on estimates of other ichthyosaur species. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
That's magnificent. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:49 | |
This is the whole animal | 0:52:49 | 0:52:50 | |
and we estimate that it may have been up to around 4.5m long. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:55 | |
Is that bigger than most in Lyme? | 0:52:55 | 0:52:56 | |
Yes, this is certainly bigger | 0:52:56 | 0:52:58 | |
than most of the ichthyosaurs that we see at Lyme Regis. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:00 | |
It looks huge. It looks amazing. | 0:53:00 | 0:53:02 | |
Here are the forelimbs right at the front | 0:53:02 | 0:53:04 | |
and we've got hindlimbs here and at the back, we've got a tail bend. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:08 | |
This is supported by the backbone, | 0:53:08 | 0:53:10 | |
which extends along the whole length of the body. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:12 | |
-But that bend is natural, isn't it? That's not a break. -Yes. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:15 | |
That gives strength to the lower element of the tail | 0:53:15 | 0:53:18 | |
for driving it forward. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:19 | |
Much like a shark, | 0:53:19 | 0:53:21 | |
the tail bend is the main propulsive organ of the animal. | 0:53:21 | 0:53:24 | |
So, could this be a new species? | 0:53:24 | 0:53:27 | |
Yes, these pieces of evidence together | 0:53:27 | 0:53:29 | |
suggest that it is going to be a new species and it's jolly exciting. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
-They don't come along every day. -Historic! -Yes. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:36 | |
This is wonderful news. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
A sighting by Chris on the beach in Lyme Regis | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
has led to the discovery of a new species of ichthyosaur, | 0:53:43 | 0:53:47 | |
adding to our knowledge of these fascinating creatures. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:50 | |
It's extraordinary how much you can discover from one single fossil. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:56 | |
Digital reconstruction has allowed us | 0:53:56 | 0:53:59 | |
to rebuild this animal to reveal how it looked and how it moved. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:04 | |
We've discovered, for the first time, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
that this creature was countershaded. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
But that didn't stop it from being attacked. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:13 | |
By analysing its bones, | 0:54:14 | 0:54:16 | |
we've been able to work out that its most likely attacker | 0:54:16 | 0:54:19 | |
was a temnodontosaurus, | 0:54:19 | 0:54:21 | |
the most ferocious predator of the seas at that time. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:25 | |
It's been a fascinating journey of discovery, but, for me, | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
the real wonder is the bones themselves. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:37 | |
I can't wait to see what they look like when they're finally cleaned. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:41 | |
After many months of painstaking and patient preparation, | 0:54:53 | 0:54:58 | |
Chris and his team have finally completed their work | 0:54:58 | 0:55:02 | |
on the fossil of our ancient sea dragon. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:04 | |
Here it is finished. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:18 | |
Wow! | 0:55:20 | 0:55:22 | |
It's really beautiful, isn't it? | 0:55:22 | 0:55:25 | |
-I mean, it is beautiful, that's for sure. -Thank you. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
-It's a great specimen, isn't it? -Lovely. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:31 | |
And how many new species have been discovered in the last 100 years? | 0:55:31 | 0:55:36 | |
Very few, very, very few | 0:55:36 | 0:55:38 | |
and it's thrilling to find something that's just never been seen before. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
Well, it was a long time spent | 0:55:45 | 0:55:47 | |
just revealing the body of this creature, | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
but it's also revealed this extraordinary story | 0:55:51 | 0:55:54 | |
of life and death, | 0:55:54 | 0:55:56 | |
predator-prey fighting it out in the seas | 0:55:56 | 0:56:00 | |
200 million years ago just down there. | 0:56:00 | 0:56:04 | |
Yeah, it's a fantastic story. | 0:56:04 | 0:56:07 | |
Really, really thrilling and romantic. | 0:56:07 | 0:56:10 | |
For Chris, this has been a labour of love | 0:56:13 | 0:56:16 | |
and it's filled in another gap in the palaeontological jigsaw - | 0:56:16 | 0:56:22 | |
a story that all started | 0:56:22 | 0:56:24 | |
with an odd-looking boulder on a Dorset beach. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:28 | |
It's extraordinary to think | 0:56:28 | 0:56:30 | |
that some 200 million years ago exactly here, | 0:56:30 | 0:56:36 | |
the greatest predator of its time was swimming around in the sea | 0:56:36 | 0:56:42 | |
and that's what I really love about fossils and fossil hunting. | 0:56:42 | 0:56:46 | |
It gives you an extraordinarily vivid insight | 0:56:46 | 0:56:50 | |
into what the world was like millions of years before | 0:56:50 | 0:56:55 | |
human beings even appeared on this planet. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:58 | |
Ichthyosaurs died out around 90 million years ago. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:10 | |
No-one knows why, | 0:57:10 | 0:57:12 | |
but standing here and having excavated that spectacular fossil, | 0:57:12 | 0:57:17 | |
it's not difficult to imagine a time | 0:57:17 | 0:57:20 | |
when dragons really did rule the seas. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:24 |