All language subtitles for Attenborough and the Sea Dragon BBC 1080p HDTV MVGroup EN Sub_Subtitles01.ENG

The remains of a dragon
have just been discovered

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

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

It was an enormous marine
reptile that ruled the seas

at the same time as
the dinosaurs ruled the land.

Scientifically,
it's called an ichthyosaur.

Since Jurassic times,

its fossilized bones have been
locked away in these cliffs.

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

Lots and lots of bone in there.

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

new insights into the lives of
these remarkable creatures.

Together with a team of scientists,

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

We'll try to understand
how it looked.

We have actual preservation
of the skin of our ichthyosaur.

How extraordinary!

And how it survived
in the open ocean.

Could this be a completely new
species of ichthyosaur?

Our search for evidence will lead us

into an intriguing forensic
investigation into how it died.

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

Solving that mystery will throw
light on the extraordinary world

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

The story of this
extraordinary dragon

starts here in Dorset on
the south coast of England,

one of the most important geological
sites in the world -

the Jurassic Coast.

It stretches for almost 100 miles
from Devon to Dorset.

And it was here that
the early geologists

first collected evidence
that once the world was ruled

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

Evidence of creatures that existed
all that time ago

can still be found on these beaches.

Fossil collectors have been coming
here for literally centuries

and these rapidly eroding
cliffs are providing them

with a continuous supply of
exciting things to find.

I started looking for fossils
when I was a boy

and I've never lost
the feeling of excitement

and anticipation of what
one might discover.

The commonest fossils here
are coiled shells called ammonites

and you can find them
all over the place.

There's one here on this boulder.

You can see the whorls there,

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

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

and if you look at them,

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

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

HE LAUGHS

How about that?

Wow!

What a find!

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

but every now and again,
something truly rare

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

one of the most skilled
fossil hunters I know.

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

Recently, he came across a boulder

which he thought might contain
something unusual.

Back in his workshop,

he exposed a mosaic of small,
beautifully preserved bones

which he knew straight away
were the front fins,

the paddles, of an ichthyosaur.

But they were unlike any
he had ever seen before.

I still collect fossils.

I even have the remains
of an ichthyosaur -

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

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

I never found anything
as beautiful as this.

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

And Dorset was
the very first place

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

This is a picture of it,

published
for the very first time in 1814.

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

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

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

Since that time, many fossil
fragments of ichthyosaurs

have been discovered
on the Jurassic Coast.

But complete skeletons
are very rare.

The particular one that
Chris has just found

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

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

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

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

It's in the very top
limestone bed

where the cliffs are
at the lowest point.

It's got about two metres on top
of clay

and we'll have to clear
this material off

till we get to the limestone bed.

It' a lot of hard work.

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

before the winter turns again
and the weather gets bad

because there's a chance
that the next landslip

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

In Jurassic times,
sea covered all this area.

On its floor,
sediments washed down from the land

turned into layers of shales
and limestone.

The land rose, the sea retreated

and now in the rocks,

you can find the remains
of the creatures

that once lived in
those ancient waters.

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

such as sharks.

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

They dominated the seas for more
than 150 million years.

After getting permission to dig,

the team clamber down the cliff
to the particular layer

where the rest of our ichthyosaur
skeleton should be lying.

I'm going to need
at least another metre,

cos I need to drop down
to the next bit.

It's dangerous work.

These cliffs occasionally
collapse without warning.

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

the team do all the digging by hand.

There's just loads of roots.

Tonnes of clay have to be
removed before they even reach

the layer of limestone
where they hope

the rest of the bones still lie.

Wayhey!

It was on this very coast

that the first complete skeleton of
an ichthyosaur was discovered.

It was found in the 19th century

by a remarkable woman
called Mary Anning.

Mary lived in the little
town of Lyme Regis,

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

When Mary was only 11,
her father died

so she and her brother
started selling fossils to visitors

to support their widowed mother.

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

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

she discovered
this gigantic creature,

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

Dinosaurs had not
yet been discovered.

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

there were such gigantic creatures,

so this caused a sensation.

It was then that the popular name
"sea dragon"

was given to these
prehistoric monsters.

Scientists speculated
on how they lived

and artists tried to imagine
what they must have looked like

and how they behaved.

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

But they haven't found
any more bones.

This is a massive piece. Tombstone!

Right, ready?

Chris is convinced that the skeleton
to which the paddles belonged

must be somewhere here and
they check every rock.

Beautiful shale!

Lovely! Anything interesting?
Moment of truth...

Nothing.

Just push it off. Yeah.

Is there anything showing?

Nothing else here.

Oh, gosh, that's hard work.

I hope there's something here.

I almost don't want to look!

Ah! What have you found?

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

There's something here!
HE LAUGHS

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

We've got some bones here!

There's loads of bones. Fantastic!

Ah! What's this?

Is that a vertebrae?

But the bones are not
in the position

the team had expected to find them.

Instead of lying
across the face of the cliff,

the skeleton seems to be
bending back into it.

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

It means much more work.

And to make matters worse,
a storm is brewing.

The rain is just starting,

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

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

Beautiful rainbow, though.

A rainbow will be little comfort
if the storm persists.

Rough seas and heavy downpours
can cause landslips,

which could easily destroy any
chance of retrieving the bones.

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

the paddles of our sea dragon.

They convinced him that the
fossil was something special.

VOICEOVER: You can see why
when you compare them

VOICEOVER: to the paddles
of the kind of ichthyosaur

VOICEOVER:
that's usually found here.

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

and if you compare it to this one...

Oh, it's huge. Oh, yeah. I've never
seen anything quite like it.

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

I think there's at least
nine or ten crossways

and obviously, you know,
many more in length.

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

And the whole shape of the fin is
completely... Quite different.

And must be new, therefore?

I think so. I've never seen anything
quite like it. How exciting!

VOICEOVER: It's extremely rare
to find

VOICEOVER: a new species of
ichthyosaur these days.

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

But can these strange
paddles tell us something

about how this odd
ichthyosaur lived?

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

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

So, Chris is taking them
to Southampton University.

Here, the engineering department
has one of the largest

high resolution scanners
in the country.

It's not every day someone walks in

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

The machine can scan objects
of all different shapes and sizes

from ancient coins to
the components of spacecraft.

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

in cross sections through
the fossil as it rotates.

It's not long before
the first images appear.

That's amazing.
It looks really clear.

You can even see the bones
laying underneath the paddle.

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

We're going to do multiple
scans down the specimen

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

The scans of the paddles are sent
to Bristol University.

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

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

The team is particularly
excited by the shape

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

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

fully reconstructed, rearticulated

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

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

what species it might have been.

Because of the size of the paddle

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

it's different to
other ichthyosaurus

and so this could be a new species.

That would be great. It would
be jolly exciting.

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

but can the paddles
tell us something

about the way in which
this creature swam?

There are a lot of bones
in this paddle,

which would have been
good for holding steady

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

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

All of the gaps between the bones

would have been filled in
with cartilage

and even further around
the paddle itself,

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

a bit like an aerofoil

so that it could cut straight
through the water.

Could they fold them in to the side?
Probably not.

Looking at the muscles
and where they attach,

it suggests these are
moving up and down,

helping it to turn very quickly

or keeping it on the straight
and narrow

when it wants to be
a little more sedate.

The shape of the paddles
and the way they moved

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

That animal usually
lives in tropical waters

like these in the Caribbean.

The sea here is warm

with temperatures much like
they would have been

in Jurassic times around Britain.

And the animal in question...

is the dolphin.

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

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

The front fins or paddles of both

would have helped to
steady themselves

as they turn and cut
through the water.

And both have similar dorsal fins.

So, although they lived
200 million years apart,

dolphins and ichthyosaurs share many
physical characteristics

and that's because they evolved
in similar ways

as a response to
a similar environment.

Like dolphins,

ichthyosaurs evolved from ancestors
that had once lived on land.

As they became adapted
to life in water,

they lost the ability to walk,

their bodies became more streamlined

and their forelimbs turned
into paddles to help them swim.

But ichthyosaurs do differ
from dolphins in two striking ways.

Dolphins have tails
that are flattened horizontally

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

But we know from their fossils
that ichthyosaur tails

were flattened vertically
like those of sharks,

so they must have swum in
the same sort of way

by sweeping their tails
from side to side.

Ichthyosaurs, unlike dolphins,
also had back paddles.

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

And what's more, the paddles
of our ichthyosaur

are particularly large and long,

rather like those of
the oceanic whitetip shark.

That shape helps the whitetip
to cruise for long distances

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

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

and only an infrequent visitor
to the Lyme Regis seas,

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

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

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

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

before worse weather arrives.

That's how hard the rock is.

It's actually smashed
the end off the chisel.

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

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

Lots and lots of bone in there.
Yeah.

Ribs and all sorts of stuff.

And there's another particularly
exciting discovery.

Is there skin? Yeah, look.
Oh, really?

They've found signs of
fossilized skin.

Rare, isn't it?

Yeah, very rare.

The blocks that contain
bones and skin

can't be thrown down
like the other rocks.

They must be carefully strapped up
and gently lowered.

That's the first block down.

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

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

How's it going? Well,
quite well so far. A lot shifted.

Yeah, about 20 tonnes of it,
I think. Really? Yes.

How's it doing? Is it caught?

No, it's OK. It's OK? Yeah.

What do you reckon's in it?

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

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

You can see
a cross section through them.

VOICEOVER: While the team continue
lowering the huge blocks,

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

So, lots over here.

Ah, well,
I can see something there. Ah!

That's more obvious, yeah. Yeah.

Here, you can see,
glinting in the sunlight,

sections through the backbone,
the vertebral column.

Wow!

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

and these are the neurals

that come off the backbone.

The spines off the top of the back.

Yeah, but they've actually got skin
preserved on them. No, really? Yeah.

Can you see that here?
Well, that's the very black.

You can
see it on the impression as well.

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

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

Most likely here in this next slab.

And it's not there? Not so far.

Oh, boy!

How many more tonnes to go?

HE SIGHS, THEY LAUGH

Only a few!
THEY LAUGH

OK.

Once the blocks are
down on the beach,

the team remove as much excess
limestone as possible

to make them lighter.

Even then, they're extremely heavy

so to get them back to Lyme Regis,

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

So, for the first time
in 200 million years,

our strange ichthyosaur once again
takes to the water.

The dig may be over,

but the investigation
is only just beginning.

WHIRRING

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

but small vibrating chisels

that chip off the limestone
in tiny flakes.

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

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

It's almost forensic.

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

until you reveal it.

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

so every other part of
the skeleton that we reveal

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

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

Day after day
and week after week,

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

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

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

It's a bit of squeeze
past the plesiosaur.

VOICEOVER: It really
is an Aladdin's cave.

VOICEOVER; After weeks of work,

VOICEOVER: Chris has exposed
the backbones and ribs.

So, this is it so far.

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

It looks like it's been attacked.

Gosh! There's breakages
all through the ribcage.

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

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

so one rib is now
broken into three pieces.

How extraordinary!
But what's happened here?

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

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

the flippers have been ripped off.

Where would they go?

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

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

They should be basically
in this position

and facing the other way up

and they've been ripped off
and turned over.

Gosh!

Well, where was the head?

The head should be here.

That's the very last vertebrae.
Back of the neck? Yeah.

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

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

So, it's a murder. Yes! Really?

Yeah, I think it was killed.

Did this predator crunch the head,
do you think? Who knows?

It's 200 millions years ago,

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

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

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

So it's all hands on deck.

They've even roped me in.

This is more difficult
than it looks.

Very good!

Could you start on
three days a week?

Is it all right? It's good, yeah. I
haven't gone too close to the bone?

No, no. Phew, that's a relief!

But what of the missing head?

If it was ripped off,

Chris thinks he might still
be able to find it

somewhere on the beach,

so at every opportunity,

he scours the area where
the first block was found.

The best time to look
is after a storm

when a strong sea has
moved sand and shingle

and perhaps revealed
the rocks beneath.

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

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

in investigating the cause of death
in prehistoric animals.

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

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

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

This is where the rib has
healed after a break

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

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

You can see that
it's healed as well.

Yeah, it's definitely an old injury.

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

But some of the other breaks
tell a different story.

If you look down here
and especially this one,

this fracture here mirrors
that fracture there

and then we can see
a whole line of fractures

where there's no new bone growth.

Something has actually
crushed this ribcage.

So look here at these neural spines.

These are absolutely perfect

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

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

they're perfect again.

So, there to there is damaged.

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

and also on some of these belly ribs

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

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

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

Somewhere like that, yeah.

There was a massive bite,
it caused catastrophic injury

and, remember,
the ribcage is protecting lungs.

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

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

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

this animal is dead.

It can't breathe

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

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

presumably it was looking for food,

it didn't get to eat it.

Oh, no, I think it just killed it.

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

So this probably all took place
in the surface water,

but as soon as
it's done this injury,

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

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

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

But what type of creature
could possibly have inflicted

so much damage to our sea dragon?

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

This is fossilised ichthyosaur
droppings called a coprolite

and what makes it particularly
interesting

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

So, that shows that ichthyosaurs
were fish eaters,

but more than that, this one
is even more interesting

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

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

It ate other ichthyosaur species.

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

To find out more,

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

Here, they have one of
the most impressive

and varied collections
of ichthyosaurs in the world.

They came in all shapes and sizes,

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

there was one which was
particularly fearsome.

This is temnodontosaurus,

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

They grew up to 10m long

and individual bones have been
discovered which suggest

that they could grow
even bigger than that.

The remains of these
terrifying sea monsters

were discovered in a quarry
just outside Stuttgart.

These are the biggest complete
temnodontosaurus fossils ever found.

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

which would have given it
extremely acute eyesight.

Not only that,
but the eye was surrounded

by a ring of scutes - bony plates -

to protect it from
the water pressure at depth.

So, with eyes the size of footballs,

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

It also had rows of sharp teeth

that would have allowed it to
rip apart almost anything.

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

And here's another specimen
of temnodontosaurus

that is proof positive that
it really was a hunter.

Here is its stomach
and inside its stomach,

you can see these tiny little
circular bones,

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

So we now know that
temnodontosaurus

could devour young ichthyosaurs,

but would one have been capable

of eating an adult ichthyosaur
like ours?

Fossils of temnodontosaurus have
been found in other regions,

including our own Jurassic Coast.

So, this monster could well
be our prime suspect.

To build our case further,

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

that was found on
the Jurassic Coast.

This is the skull of
a temnodontosaurus

and as you can see,
it's huge.

This specimen was found
by Mary Anning

on the Dorset coast
in the 19th century

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

with the latest techniques

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

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

are going to attempt to calculate

the bite strength of
a temnodontosaurus.

The first step is to scan the skull.

Not as easy as it sounds.

Very few scanners are big enough,

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

where they're more accustomed
to scanning horses.

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

Luckily, it's in two pieces.

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

OK. One, two, three and up.

These scans will help the team

to not only reconstruct
the temnodontosaurus' skull,

but also work out the size
of its jaw muscles.

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

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

Temnodontosaurs are unusual

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

but how did other ichthyosaurs
catch their prey?

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

That is a gharial crocodile
from Indonesia.

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

like an African crocodile's,

but long and thin
and because of that shape,

there's very little
resistance to the water

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

They're very formidable
animals indeed.

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

Their jaws were very similar to
those of the gharial -

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

because the jaws at the back
were quite big enough

to enable the animal to swallow
their prey whole,

just as the gharial does.

Gharials regularly shed their teeth

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

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

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

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

to catch small, slippery fish
and squid,

just like a gharial crocodile.

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

Chris has found that there
is fossilized skin

over nearly the whole skeleton.

It seems to be virtually covering
the whole thing.

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

let alone so much of it.

Fiann Smithwick, an expert
on fossilized skin,

has come to take a sample
back to his lab.

We can look and see
if there's any evidence

of the original pigment
preserved in the skin.

Oh, that's a lovely piece. That's
really good. That'll be perfect.

Fiann hopes that this
remarkably preserved sample

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

At the University of Bristol,

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

that coats its surface with
minute particles of gold.

They will reflect the rays
of a scanning electron microscope.

It's astonishing that
you can actually see

the remains of skin on such
an ancient fossil.

But this microscope can also
magnify its structure

tens of thousands of times.

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

of our ichthyosaur, despite
being 200 million years old,

so the structures
we're looking at here

are around half a micrometre across

and a micrometre is
one millionth of a metre

and you see here
these little granules

and these are preserved melanosomes.

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

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

and the distribution of them
can tell us

about the overall colour
patterns of the animal.

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

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

This area has come from the back.

There's a large
abundance of these melanosomes.

There's a lot of pigment here

and when we look at samples

that have
come from the bottom of the animal,

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

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

and this conforms to
a type of colour pattern

known as countershading
in modern animals.

You can see countershading
in lots of sea animals today.

Great white sharks, for example.

Both predators and prey
are coloured in this way.

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

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

evidence of a countershaded
pattern in an ichthyosaur.

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

It is and it can tell us

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

Just from looking at that picture?

Just from looking at these
melanosomes. Great!

Today, countershaded animals
tend to live in open water

where there's good visibility.

Ichthyosaurs also
lived in the open seas

so being camouflaged in this way

would have been
very valuable to them.

The latest scientific research
suggests that countershading

might also protect against
ultraviolet light

and even help to regulate
body temperature.

As an air-breathing creature,

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

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

There are, of course,

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

The biggest of them
is the leatherback,

whose ancestors, in fact,
were around

at the same time as
the ichthyosaurs.

Today, they come ashore
to nest in many places,

including the Caribbean.

This huge leatherback turtle
is laying her eggs.

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

and now she's depositing
about 100 of them.

She'll then fill in the hole

and then work her way down
back to the sea.

It's clearly a very
laborious process.

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

having to come onto land
to lay eggs.

Ichthyosaurs were reptiles
and they lived in the sea,

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

that they gave birth to live young

and that would have saved
the sea dragons

making the dangerous
journey onto land.

There is remarkable evidence
that ichthyosaurs gave birth

to live young in
the Stuttgart museum.

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

proof positive that ichthyosaurs
gave birth to live young.

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

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

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

But something happened before
that did

and here is the proof.

Whatever it was,
death must have been instant.

So, ichthyosaurs gave birth
to live babies,

just as many sharks do today.

After several weeks of research,

the team at Bristol University
have managed

to reconstruct the skull
of the temnodontosaurus

so that they can analyse
the power of its jaws.

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

Well, the first thing that
we need to know

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

So the muscles are
attaching round here

and also there's a group of muscles

that are attaching
further forward here

and if we know how much
muscle volume there is,

we can estimate how much force
that muscle can generate.

And what did you discover?

We found out that our upper
estimate of bite force

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

that's twice as powerful
as the largest saltwater crocodile

that's been measured.
Twice as powerful? Yeah.

So that's enormous, yeah. Yeah,
it's a very powerful bite force.

So, this must have been the animal

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

That's absolutely right, yeah.

Of its time, it would have been.

Not only did it have
a powerful bite,

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

Now, normally in animals
where that happens,

they have quite a fast,
but less forceful bite,

but the fact that this
animal is actually so big

means that it has a fast bite,

but also by virtue
of its sheer size,

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

so it basically
has the best of both worlds.

So, this was the king
of the Jurassic sea. Or queen!

Sorry!

Yeah. Yeah.

So, it seems fairly likely that
temnodontosaurus was strong enough

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

It must have been
a terrifying battle.

Our investigations have given us

a pretty good idea of
how our sea dragon died.

But can the reconstruction work

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

All the blocks containing the fossil
have now been scanned.

With those scans,

the team were able to separate
the individual bones

and then put them
back together to create

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

They've added a head

based on estimates of
other ichthyosaur species.

That's magnificent.

This is the whole animal

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

Is that bigger than most in Lyme?

Yes, this is certainly bigger

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

It looks huge. It looks amazing.

Here are the forelimbs
right at the front

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

This is supported by the backbone,

which extends along the whole
length of the body.

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

That gives strength to
the lower element of the tail

for driving it forward.

Much like a shark,

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

So, could this be a new species?

Yes, these pieces of
evidence together

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

They don't come along every day.
Historic! Yes.

This is wonderful news.

A sighting by Chris on
the beach in Lyme Regis

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

adding to our knowledge of these
fascinating creatures.

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

Digital reconstruction
has allowed us

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

We've discovered,
for the first time,

that this creature
was countershaded.

But that didn't stop it
from being attacked.

By analysing its bones,

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

was a temnodontosaurus,

the most ferocious predator
of the seas at that time.

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

the real wonder is
the bones themselves.

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

After many months of painstaking
and patient preparation,

Chris and his team have finally
completed their work

on the fossil of our
ancient sea dragon.

Here it is finished.

Wow!

It's really beautiful, isn't it?

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

It's a great specimen,
isn't it? Lovely.

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

Very few, very, very few

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

Well, it was a long time spent

just revealing the body
of this creature,

but it's also revealed
this extraordinary story

of life and death,

predator-prey fighting it out
in the seas

200 million years ago
just down there.

Yeah, it's a fantastic story.

Really, really thrilling
and romantic.

For Chris,
this has been a labour of love

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

a story that all started

with an odd-looking boulder
on a Dorset beach.

It's extraordinary to think

that some 200 million years ago
exactly here,

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

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

It gives you
an extraordinarily vivid insight

into what the world was like
millions of years before

human beings even appeared
on this planet.

Ichthyosaurs died out around
90 million years ago.

No-one knows why,

but standing here and having
excavated that spectacular fossil,

it's not difficult to imagine a time

when dragons really
did rule the seas.