A fossil hunter named Phil Jacobs was walking along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England when he spotted what appeared to be a strange piece of snout poking out of the beach. He filmed it, shared it with renowned fossil collector Steve Etches, and what followed was one of the most dramatic paleontological discoveries in recent memory. A drone survey revealed the rest of the skull embedded twelve meters up a sheer cliff face, and when researchers descended on ropes to investigate, they found themselves looking at the most complete pliosaur skull ever discovered anywhere in the world. The fossil, now nicknamed SeaRex, is 95 percent intact, still holds around 130 interlocking teeth exactly as they were positioned 150 million years ago, and has just been officially entered into the Guinness World Records. Experts described the find as a one in a billion specimen, and said it contains a level of anatomical detail that would normally require piecing together information from dozens of separate partial fossils.
Pliosaurs were the apex ocean predators of the Jurassic period, powerful enough to rival a Tyrannosaurus rex in bite force, and this skull alone measures roughly six feet in length. Extracting it required ropes, specialized equipment and considerably more challenge than the tidy quarry scenes typically shown in fossil documentaries. Sir David Attenborough, who featured SeaRex in a BBC program, said the experience of seeing the skull in person made him realize for the first time just how enormous the animal’s head truly was. Scientists also found additional bones nearby, including vertebrae, a shoulder blade and parts of the limbs, and the lead fossil expert believes the rest of the complete animal may still be hidden inside the surrounding cliff, waiting for the next stage of excavation to begin.
Source: https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/03/most-complete-fossil-skull-found-cliff/
