A 150-million-year-old fossilised skull belonging to a creature called a pliosaur has been unearthed along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset in England.

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Richard Forrest: 'To get a whole skull like this is like Christmas and Easter and everything rolled into one, because we actually can see, yes this really was an absolutely enormous animal, and realistically, probably the most powerful predator that ever lived.'

The fossilised skull has now been bought by Dorset County Council using Heritage Lottery Funds. They plan to eventually put it on public display.

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terrorised the oceans
frightened sea creatures and fed on them

fearsome hunters
frightening creatures which look for, chase and kill other

passing prey
animals which were swimming along and which the pliosaurs could catch and eat

skull
the bones of the head which give the head its shape

a local fossil collector
someone whose hobby it is to dig for and find fossils (bones, shells or the shapes of plants or animals which have been preserved in rock for a very long time) in the area near where they live

palaeontologist
person whose job is to study fossils as a way of getting information about the history of life on Earth

specimen
example (here, this particular fossil)

is like Christmas and Easter and everything rolled into one
is a very good or happy time (in the Christian calendar, both Chirstmas and Easter are happy times of celebration)

predator
animal that hunts, kills and eats other animals

on public display
available for members of the public to see

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