Just when you thought Sir David Attenborough’s films couldn’t get any better, a new BBC programme will find the skull of a fierce Jurassic predator.
Attenborough And The Giant Sea Monster, a working title, is an hour-long documentary in which the 96-year-old naturalist and broadcaster explores the history of the pliosaur, an ancient sea reptile.
We’re already obsessed.
‘Pliosaurs were the biggest and most formidable hunters in the Jurassic seas – the marine equivalent, you might say, of T Rex.’ Sir David said of the new project, which follows the enormously successful BBC One series Wild Isles.
‘The skull of this one is, by itself, over two metres long and armed with massive fangs.’
He continued: ‘Frustratingly, skulls, which can tell us most about an animal, are only too easily smashed before fossilisation but this one is virtually undamaged and promises to reveal all kinds of new details about these terrifying hunters that preyed on Lyme Regis’s better known ichthyosaurs.’
Sir David will be accompanied by a team of palaeontologists and scientists as they attempt to better comprehend the Jurassic predator, which fossil experts think is a whole new species of pliosaur.
The finding of the skull will assist the scientists figure out how the monster appeared and acted, as well as its hunting techniques.
The documentary has been filmed on location across the UK and will combine ‘ground-breaking science with gripping storytelling’, as well as ‘state-of-the-art CGI to tell the tale of this most phenomenal predator of the Jurassic world’.
The BBC’s head of commissioning of specialist factual, Jack Bootle, enthused: ‘Sir David has filmed some of the world’s very best fossil animals, so the fact he’s so interested in this skull makes me unbelievably excited.
‘This film promises to be a thrilling trip through time to a moment when monsters ruled the seas around Britain. I can’t wait for viewers to experience it.’
Attenborough And The Giant Sea Monster is coming soon to the BBC.