The world’s only example of a new species of pliosaur (Pliosaurus carpenteri) will go on display at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery this June, and the museum would like your help in naming the beastie!
A shortlist of names has been gathered by the team at the museum ready for a public vote:
Brizo (Greek goddess – protector of mariners, sailors and fishermen)
Chompy
Doris (a sea nymph from Greek mythology)
Pip
You can cast your vote at bristolmuseums.org.uk/namethebeast until Sunday 12 March.
The length of a bus with sharp teeth the size of bananas, four huge flippers and crushingly powerful jaws, the pliosaur was the ultimate predator of the Jurassic seas and may have swam very close to where you’re standing now!
Bristol was a very different place 150 million years ago. A warm tropical ocean covered the land, and while dinosaurs walked the earth and pterosaurs were flying the skies, marine reptiles dominated the seas. The pliosaur was the biggest and fiercest of all – there is nothing alive like them today.
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery’s internationally significant pliosaur will go on public display for the first time this summer as part of the blockbuster family exhibition ‘Pliosaurus!’ sponsored by Clifton High School.
Alongside the fossil, visitors will come face to face with a full size replica of a living pliosaur.