| Where can you see it? | The skeleton will be displayed in the redeveloped Rotunda Museum in Scarborough when it reopens in 2007, forming a star exhibit in the Shell Geology Now Gallery. |
When Nigel Armstrong from Doncaster found the fossilised remains of a creature known as a 'sea dragon' on land south of Filey in 2002, dinosaur experts said it was a 'once in a lifetime' discovery. Amateur enthusiast Nigel says he was just walking along the cliffs around Filey when he spotted some unusual looking bones. "I was pleased when I found one of the back bones at the bottom of the cliff, but when I traced the remains up to the main skeleton I was over the moon," he said.
 | | Reconstruction of a plesiosaur head |
A team of palaeontologists then spent a week working in atrocious weather conditions, excavating the remains. They were then removed and taken to Scarborough to be cleaned. Yorkshire coast monster A fearsome creature, a plesiosaur, which once roamed the shores of the North Yorkshire coast, would have looked the way the Loch Ness monster is described. It had a long neck topped by a small head, razor sharp teeth and a barrel shaped body with four diamond shaped paddles to propel it through the water - it lived in the sea. The full package The cliff at Filey beach is basically clay and has preserved the remains in almost exactly the same order as they lay when the reptile died. All that's been found before is isolated or a few grouped bones, nothing like virtually a whole skeleton.
 | | Reconstruction of a plesiosaur |
Mark Evans, a plesiosaur expert from Leicester Museums, said it was one of the few plesiosaur skeletons from the early part of the Cretaceous period. "We know about earlier plesiosaurs from the Jurassic period and ones from later on in the Cretaceous, so this new specimen fills a gap in our knowledge very nicely" he said. "Although it looks like it belongs to a group of plesiosaurs with long necks, this plesiosaur is a new one, and will need a new name all of its own." Beware the Armstrongi!
 | | Nigel at the plesiosaur dig |
So it looks as though Mr Armstrong may be rewarded for his find by having this particular species of plesiosaur named after him. Scientists are yet to confirm the decision, but if it goes ahead, convention would mean its name would include the word Armstrongi, as it has to become Latinised.
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