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Hello and welcome to The Ex episode. I'm Dana Taylor.

Today is Thursday, February 29, 2024,

and this is a special episode of the excerpt.

The T-Rex of the sea, they call it, its more formal name, Pliosaur. It's a giant prehistoric marine reptile. The discovery of the fossilized jaw and skull of one such 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 Eches,

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 Eches Collection Museum of Jurassic Marine Life in

Cambridge, Dorset, where that Pliocor skull is now on display.

Steve, thanks for joining me.

It's a pleasure.

Tell us about the day of the Pliosaur discovery, after you recall to the site, what first

caught your attention and is this the most thrilling find of your career as a paleontologist? So it's not the most thrilling find of your career as a paleontologist.

So it's not the most thrilling fine, but let me just elaborate.

I mean the snout that 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

can get a vehicle to so he either had to carry it back in his rucksack or leave it there.

So Ash who's who's worked with us we both both went down, I think, the very next day with a short

aluminium ladder and with two other helpers we strapped this snout to the ladder and then carried

it back about a mile and a half the other way and then

...