Pliosaur discovery: Dorset fossil attracts record visitors to museum

The 2m-long pliosaur fossil featured in a BBC film with Sir David Attenborough

A Dorset museum displaying the skull of a huge sea creature said it has had a record number of visitors.

The 2m-long pliosaur fossil featured in a BBC film with Sir David Attenborough.

As of 11 January, the Etches Collection in Kimmeridge said it had received 4,868 visitors, almost 10 times their usual number for the whole of January.

The museum's manager said the numbers far exceed those who came when they first opened in 2016 and might not have hit their peak.

The 150-million-year-old marine reptile went on display last week, close to where the beast was found on a beach near Kimmeridge Bay.

The rest of its skeleton may still be entombed in the crumbling cliffs, and the hope is it may eventually be recovered.

Steve Etches has the skull, now he wants the rest of the animal's body

The museum's operations manager Carla Crook, daughter of palaeontologist Steve Etches who led the excavation, said their total number of visitors for the whole month of January is "usually only about 500".

Its busiest day ever, on Saturday 6 January, saw a total number of 1,064 visitors.

"The majority are local, but there are lots of people who are coming from much further afield," Mrs Crook said.

"We've had people come down from Wales... We have had some people visit from Australia.

"These are people that have come over from abroad and because they've heard about the skull they've tied us into their visit."

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She said the museum has had enquiries from people in the United States, Australia, and Europe, and that they do not think interest in the skull has hit its "potential peak yet".

"[The documentary] is still to go out on PBS on the 14 February to the United States, so we're still awaiting the wash of potential interest of visitors that that screening is going to create," she said.

"It's given us that lifeline in visitors that we so desperately need to keep us going.

"I think Kimmeridge will become busier because they'll want to come down and actually, not just take in the geology of the bay, but try to look for fossils themselves."

The whole excavation was conducted on ropes high above the Dorset beach

But if people wish to fossil-hunt, Mrs Crook said it was really important they follow the fossil collecting code, the rules and regulations of the bay, and health and safety precautions.

She said: "Loose fossils along the whole of the Jurassic coast are okay to pick up, but Steve is the only one that has access to actually collect from Kimmeridge bay.

"What they can't do is use hammers to hammer anything out of the shell ledges or the cliffs."

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