Britain's largest 'Sea Dragon' discovered in UK's smallest county

[mellosouls]

From the Beeb's report [1]

"I rang up the county council and I said I think I've found a dinosaur," explained Joe Davis, who works at Rutland Water Nature Reserve.

:

The council said to Mr Davis: "We don't have a dinosaur department at Rutland County Council so we're going to have to get someone to call you back."

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59915689

[tomalpha]

I love this quote, but to be fair it's immediately followed by:

    A team of palaeontologists were brought in for a closer look.

Which, assuming it was done by Rutland County Council, is actually pretty cool.

(Edit: where "it" is the act of bringing the team in from Manchester Uni)

[NotVerstappen]

These austerity measures have just gone too far!

[iso1210]

Yes, Rutland is the smallest county, I expect they'd have to ask for help from the Leicestershire or Cambridgeshire dinosaur departments

[hutzlibu]

I like that dry and sometimes dark humor part of the british culture very much.

[samwillis]

This is so cool, its only about 10 miles down the road from us!

My daughters school is great at jumping on these things when they happen, I bet the Sea Dragon will be the talk of the playground today.

I'm amazed that these things are kept to quiet until they make a big public splash, absolutely no chat/rumours about this locally despite it being found 11 months ago.

Rutland (the UKs smallest county) is doing quite well for discoveries right now, last year a massive Roman mosaic floor was uncovered in a field [0] and a shackled Human Roman skeleton was also found[1].

0: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/nov/25/archaeologis...

1: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/07/shackled-ske...

[Bayart]

>I'm amazed that these things are kept to quiet until they make a big public splash, absolutely no chat/rumours about this locally despite it being found 11 months ago.

Sadly theft is a big problem everywhere, be it antiquities or fossils. Far less so in countries like Britain because it's wealthy and dense enough that it's not rampant like in some other countries (Mongolia comes to mind for fossils), but I'm certain the researchers would still rather take precautions, if only to keep away reckless tourists.

[sandworm101]

The last line of the bbc article talks of a tv show. I would hate to think that this article was held until that show was ready to air. The BBC is meant to be above such commercial shenanigans.

[Accacin]

I'm going to sound pretty dumb right now, but I'm from Leicestershire and have been to Rutland water many times when I was younger, but I never knew that Rutland was a county.

[onychomys]

For anybody who doesn't want to click through, it's an Ichthyosaur.

[iso1210]

I've got an anti-histamine for that

[abledon]

With bones like that I'm imaging a peasant digging up some skulls/bones like this in the medieval ages, and then later on, getting drunk and popping off as a farfetched story teller in the tavern... not surprised at how tales of "Dragons" would pop up.

[adolph]

The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times Paperback – March 27, 2011

Griffins, Cyclopes, Monsters, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

https://www.amazon.com/First-Fossil-Hunters-Dinosaurs-Mammot...

[enchiridion]

I’m mostly just surprised that these types of fossils did not end up as heirlooms covered in gold and jewels.

Does anything like that exist?

[_joel]

For one moment I thought we'd had a covert super heavy lift program that had just come to light. Ah well :)

[zackkatz]

There’s a great short video on the Anglican Water website:

https://www.anglianwater.co.uk/community/rutland-sea-dragon

[djrogers]

> The ichthyosaur is approximately 180 million years old and, with a skeleton measuring around 10 metres in length and a skull weighing approximately one tonne

For the who didn't want to wade down to the 8th paragraph to find out

[aphrax]

This is just down the road from me - the reservoir is quite interesting in that they submerged two villages to make it - back in the 1970's from what I can recall...

[cmpxchg8b]

They also had to move the graveyard of a church that was to be submerged.

[YetAnotherNick]

Title is so confusing. Is the discovered sea dragon largest in the UK, or is it just the great Britain's largest?(I know article answers it)

[hnthrowaway0315]

Holy shit! Such a huge yet complete fossil! Is it one of the best preserved fossil of an ichthyosaurus?

[csense]

It only wanted tree fiddy.