The Excerpt podcast: Meet the T-rex of the sea, the Pliosaur

On a special episode of The Excerpt podcast: The discovery of the fossilized jaw and skull of a pliosaur, a giant prehistoric marine reptile, has set enthusiasts on fire. What might these new bones teach us about how this ancient creature lived? One man with a front row seat to it all was legendary paleontologist Steve Etches, a plumber-turned-scientist who has been collecting fossils, from what’s known as the Jurassic Coast in southern England, for over 40 years. Steve joins The Excerpt to share the extraordinary story of finding and collecting this rare fossil, currently on display at the Etches Collection Museum of Jurassic Marine Life.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, February 29th, 2024, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt.

The T-Rex of the Sea, they call it. It's more formal name Pliosaur. It's a giant prehistoric marine reptile. The discovery of the fossilized jaw and skull of one Dutch Pliosaur has set enthusiasts on fire. What might these new bones teach us about how this ancient creature lived? One man with a front row seat to it all was legendary paleontologist, Steve Etches, a plumber turned scientist who's been collecting fossils from what's known as the Jurassic Coast in southern England for more than 40 years. Steve is now curator for the Etches Collection Museum of Jurassic Marine Life in Cambridge Dorsett, where that Pliosaur skull is now on display. Steve, thanks for joining me.

Steve Etches:

It's a pleasure.

Dana Taylor:

Tell us about the day of the Pliosaur discovery. After you were called to the site, what first caught your attention and is this the most thrilling find of your career as a paleontologist?

Steve Etches:

So it is not the most thrilling find, but let me just elaborate. I mean, the snake had dropped out the cliff and was found by a friend of mine when he was walking along the beach. And it was two and a half miles away from where he could get a vehicle to. So he either had to carry it back in his rucksack or leave it there. So Ash, who worked with us, we both went down, I think the very next day with a short aluminum ladder and with the two other helpers, we strapped this snake to the ladder and then carried it back about a mile and a half the other way. And then we realized then it was a really spectacular find. We knew that the Pliosaur skull, the rest of the skull, had to be there because it was complete. There's no doubt about that at all.

So what we did then is came back with a little drone, and it turned out to be 12 meters up off the beach in a shear cliff. Very dangerous. So what we had to do is notify the climbing firms to see if they'd be interested in helping us. We came in from the top, cleared the cliff off as we went, got down onto what I thought was a Pliosaur skull, and sure enough it was, but it was preserved upside down. So then the excitement really grew because we knew exactly it was there. So had to work out a way of actually extracting it, getting the techniques and the tools to do that. And also a friend of mine, Chris Moore, who helps me and I help him often on digs or prepping material, he's a great friend of David Attenborough. So he notified David Attenborough and David Attenborough is very interested, and he notified the BBC, British Broadcasting Company, and they came, we drew up a contract and they filmed the whole shabank from the start to the finish.

Dana Taylor:

Well, I love that it's not the most thrilling find of your career. I just can't imagine what could surpass that.

Steve Etches:

Oh, lots of things. In the collection here. We've got lots and lots of unique finds. So I think we've got about 16 or 17 new species never been found before. And our best find actually is the smallest things, which were the world's first ammonite eggs. So Ammonites were cephalopods who lived in a shell. You find them in the states all over the world, but no one's ever found their eggs. So that was the most exciting one, finding those eggs and then proving the scientific community that they were ammonite eggs because we had to find them inside the Ammonites as well. So we did that and proved beyond that. But this is certainly the biggest vertebrae or the biggest skull I've ever cleaned and prepared. And that took six to nine months to actually do that off and on, and to remove all the mudstone that was in and conserve it and then clean it and get it to how you saw it in the film.

Dana Taylor:

I know that you and your team have been using state-of-the-art technologies to reveal details about this underwater predator. What do we know about how this fierce creature... I know that we know the position it was in when it died, but how it lived?

Steve Etches:

The largest cannabis reptile that probably ever lived, and they're very diagnostic in what their teeth are. They're very triangular teeth now. There's no other reptile in the hemorrhage and seas where I collect from that have these triangular teeth. So when we find big limb bones of other pliosaur and egthiasaur and plesiosaur with huge great triangular bite marks in, we know that they're feeding on their own kind smaller ones. They're feeding on plesiosaurs egthiasaur, and anything they can get down their throat. So they're the top of the food chain. They're the mega predator of the Cambridge and Seas.

Dana Taylor:

Is there something special about the geography of Cambridge Bay Dorsett where you found not only the plesiosaur fossil but so many others as well? Tell me about prehistoric life along the Jurassic Coast.

Steve Etches:

Right, the Jurassic Coast. Why it's called the Jurassic Coast, it covers the whole suite of Jurassic rocks from 200 million years ago to about 120 million years ago. And if you come along the Jurassic Coast, you walk from say, west to east, you're going walking through times. So you're covering the whole suite of Jurassic rocks. Now, the Cambridge clay I collect from was long thought to be the least attractive to the British fossil collector of all the fossil formations to collect fossils from. But the last 40 years have proved beyond doubt that they missed a trick. And there were certainly some really exquisite material here in the Cambridge clay. And the thing is, with our pliosaur skull, its preservation is unique in the sense everything is there, although it's slightly just crushed over and slightly and distorted. Every part of the element of that skull is there, the brain case and everything we want to study and everything else.

Dana Taylor:

Well, you mentioned this, but here in the US PBS recently ran that BBC documentary, Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster with Sir David Attenborough, where he's clearly awed by your discovery. Can you share a little bit more about your relationship with him and how you've collaborated with other researchers in your field?

Steve Etches:

David Attenborough is a very good presenter. He's done another one. It is Attenborough and the Sea Dragon, which was an [inaudible 00:05:56] from the Liars from 200 million year old suite of rocks. And I was involved with that because Chris Moore, again, the guy who helped us and his son, Alex Moore, helped us extract this skull. I helped them extract this other egliasaur. So I've met David Attenborough on there and other times before, and really he gets excited by large reptilian remains in the Jurassic. So as soon as he knew about this, he had to be involved. And he's a good guy to work with, dead easy to talk to. There's no heirs or graces. He's just very upfront, asked some really relevant questions, and he was thoroughly interested in the whole subject.

Dana Taylor:

So I've read that roughly 10% of your collection is on display. First, where are you keeping the other 90%. And other than storage, what are some of the most significant challenges paleontologists face in their research today?

Steve Etches:

Well, money for a start in England. I mean, let's put it this way. We know the rest of this skeleton is up in the cliff and we need to extract that. And we've got to raise a certain amount of money to actually do that and go through the whole planning of it. So we've got a crowdfund and PLA actually to raise that money to do that. So money's always been the problem. Every intention, if we collect the rest of the skeleton, we have to build a new gallery to house it, which we can do, but it's all down to money. And of course, you must realize that Britain used to be quite a wealthy country, but it's not now. So money's very difficult to access. So we're hoping we can raise that money to do that because science will be the loser. If we don't collect this, then it'll just erode and fall over the cliff and the sea comes up the cliff every twice a day. We'd lose the whole lot. So for science, really it'd be fantastic we could rescue it for the nation.

Dana Taylor:

I know that you've been collecting fossils since the age of five. I'm assuming that you would not advise biting down on any fossils that you find, which is something that you shared that you did. Any other advice though, for aspiring paleontologists?

Steve Etches:

A lot of people come here and say, how'd you find these things? And I always point to my eyes and say, well, just look. And paleontologist, to collect fossils, all you need is your eyes and something to extract it. Sometimes you find them loose on the beach. It's a really easy thing to do. But if you really want a job in paleontology in Britain, there's not a lot of places for that. And if you can think about it, I've been collecting 40 years, but I had to in tandem with that actually work as a heating engineer, heating and plumbing installer. So I had to do this as a back hobby on the back of that.

Dana Taylor:

Well, plumber to paleontologist is quite a career change. How did your interest in prehistoric creatures first start?

Steve Etches:

It's like everything. It's when you're a child, it's discovery. I love natural history, birds fishing, all that sort of thing. And paleontology is one of the things that as a child, you can do it, but you can't redo it fully. And it was only laterally when I'd established my heating and plumbing business could take a day off that I really went and collected it seriously. So it was done on that basis really.

Dana Taylor:

Well, have any Hollywood producers reached out to ask for your insights in developing an underwater Jurassic Park type movie?

Steve Etches:

No, no, no, no, no, no. Not at all.

Dana Taylor:

I'm waiting for that movie. I want to see that movie.

Steve Etches:

It's not... Okay, well, it's only going to happen in America, I can tell you because in this country, I don't think it's going to happen. The whole collection, there's some fantastic stories for recovery of this material. And they're not sort of made up. Because where we collect is a remote area, it's a dangerous area that a lot of people don't go, primarily for that reason, probably why it's been neglected in the past. And it is quite hazardous. I'm still here. I'm 74, so the rock hadn't killed me yet. It's a passion that's just come true. It's not a job, it's a really enjoyable thing to get involved in.

Dana Taylor:

Well, Steve, if there's one thing that you want listeners to walk away from our conversation with, one nugget that most people should understand about ancient creatures, what would that be?

Steve Etches:

The thing is, when we talk about 150 million years ago, it's very difficult to people to realize that actually things that exist at that time, we can't visualize that time. But you've got to remember, you're going back to a time when these animals thrived. Everything was in perfect balance. They were the top food chain predators down through the thing. And it's very good now to look back at those times and see how the world's progressed on. And there's one species that really is a bit of a thorn on the side to nature in some ways. And that's us because we are changing the whole ecology. And if we're not careful, we are using the world's resources up very, very quickly. We're expanding population wise. We've got to be very careful the way we progress on with our sort of progress in this world in some ways.

So it's a perfect world when you look back, but it's very, as I say, very difficult to visualize that time period. It's so glib, easy to go back to those times and talk about it easily. And the other thing is, of course, you've got now sending rockets up to the moon to discover water and that. Yet we don't know anything that lives in the sea now. There's a vast area, two thirds of the world's covered in water. We know very little of what goes on in the seas. We don't know if some of the even whales breed where some of they go. There's so much more to learn in this world.

Dana Taylor:

And then finally, we'll end on a fun one. Who is the most ferocious, prehistoric apex predator one that lived on land or sea? Who would win the Godzilla versus Kong sized matchup between the pliosaur and the T-Rex?

Steve Etches:

Well, we had an American guy who worked at Bristol who was asked that very question. And he could be an American. He said, he'd love to have said dinosaur, but he said, no, it'd be the pliosaur that would win.

Dana Taylor:

Steve, thank you so much for being on The Excerpt.

Steve Etches:

Thank you very much. Cheers.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Bradley Glanzrock. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson Will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Excerpt podcast: Meet the T-rex of the sea, the Pliosaur