Attenborough and the Sea Dragon Page #2

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It's dangerous work.

These cliffs occasionally

collapse without warning.

To make sure that they don't

damage any of the fossils,

the team do all the digging by hand.

There's just loads of roots.

Tonnes of clay have to be

removed before they even reach

the layer of limestone where they hope

the rest of the bones still lie.

Wayhey!

It was on this very coast

that the first complete skeleton

of an ichthyosaur was discovered.

It was found in the 19th century

by a remarkable woman called Mary Anning.

Mary lived in the little

town of Lyme Regis,

the daughter of a cabinet maker

who collected fossils as a hobby.

When Mary was only 11, her father died

so she and her brother started

selling fossils to visitors

to support their widowed mother.

Lyme Regis Museum now devotes a

whole gallery to her and her finds.

Mary had an extraordinary talent

for finding fossils and in 1811,

she discovered this gigantic creature,

the like of which no-one

had ever seen before.

Dinosaurs had not yet been discovered.

No-one had any idea that

way back in pre-history,

there were such gigantic creatures,

so this caused a sensation.

It was then that the

popular name "sea dragon"

was given to these prehistoric monsters.

Scientists speculated on how they lived

and artists tried to imagine

what they must have looked like

and how they behaved.

Back at the cliff face, Chris

and his team are hard at it.

But they haven't found any more bones.

This is a massive piece. Tombstone!

Right, ready?

Chris is convinced that the skeleton

to which the paddles belonged

must be somewhere here and

they check every rock.

Beautiful shale!

- Lovely!

- Anything interesting?

- Moment of truth...

Nothing.

- Just push it off.

- Yeah.

Is there anything showing?

Nothing else here.

Oh, gosh, that's hard work.

I hope there's something here.

I almost don't want to look!

- Ah!

- What have you found?

- There's a bone.

- Loads of bone going all the way... There's bone there.

- There's something here!

- HE LAUGHS

At long last, the team's

efforts are rewarded.

We've got some bones here!

- There's loads of bones.

- Fantastic!

Ah! What's this?

Is that a vertebrae?

But the bones are not in the position

the team had expected to find them.

Instead of lying across

the face of the cliff,

the skeleton seems to be

bending back into it.

We're going to have to

go down through there.

It means much more work.

And to make matters worse,

a storm is brewing.

The rain is just starting,

but I think we've got to

make a bit of a run for it.

We won't be working any more in this

for the moment. It's torrential.

Beautiful rainbow, though.

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