The News On Ancient Sea Reptiles: Unveiling Discoveries and Fossil History

In this article I cover the lecture by Dr. Darren Naish at Dorset Museum on The News On Ancient Sea Reptiles.

I was fortunate to attend the lecture by palaeontologist Dr Darren Naish at Dorset Museum on the 14th of March, covering an overview of Darren’s latest book Ancient Sea Reptiles, the presentation of which was aptly titled The News on Ancient Sea Reptiles.

It was a fantastic evening having not only the opportunity to chat with Darren after the talk, but with other palaeontologists who attended the event as well.

With Dr Darren Naish in front of the *Pliosaurus* *kevani* specimen after his talk The News On Ancient Sea Reptiles at Dorset Museum, March 14th, 2024.

Dorset Museum Lecture Details

The Dorset Museum website states the following about Darren’s lecture, which you can read below.

We’re in the middle of a revolution in our understanding of the sea reptiles that lived across the planet during the so-called Age of Dinosaurs, properly the Mesozoic.

These include the shark-shaped ichthyosaurs, the famously long-necked plesiosaurs, and those great swimming lizards the mosasaurs. New species are being discovered at a rapid rate, and new finds on their evolution, biology, behaviour and environment challenge old assumptions.

The lecture by Dr. Darren Naish at Dorset Museum. Image credit: James Ronan, 2024.

The UK – the Dorset coast in particular – remains globally important in our understanding of these animals. In this talk, we look at how our ideas on ancient sea reptiles have changed, what ancient sea reptiles were like as living animals, and on what we still hope to discover. There is still so much to learn.

Dr. Darren Naish is an author and palaeozoologist who works on dinosaurs, ancient sea reptiles and the flying pterosaurs. He received his PhD in palaeontology from the University of Portsmouth in 2006.

He has published numerous books, mostly recently Ancient Sea Reptiles (Natural History Museum, London/Smithsonian Books) and Mesozoic Art (with Steve White, published by Bloomsbury), and he blogs at Tetrapod Zoology (tetzoo.com) where he writes about all manner of zoological topics. He also works for the BBC Natural History Unit and is the chief scientific consultant for the Apple TV+ series Prehistoric Planet.

The skull of Pliosaurus kevani on display at Dorset Museum. Image credit: James Ronan, 2023.

I had been looking forward to attending this talk for a long while, having booked tickets for it well in advance as soon I heard it was happening. The lecture was fantastic, and it was great to hear more about the fossil discoveries that had taken place along the Jurassic Coast by Mary Anning during the 19th Century.

Darren’s Lecture

Darren broke down the changes in our perception of Jurassic marine reptiles and the latest science and research that has taken place, from understanding ichthyosaur and Mosasaurus swimming techniques to global sea level temperatures.

It was great to see some images of the marine reptiles from Prehistoric Planet like the Tuarangisaurus and Mosasaurus appear within the lecture as well. Darren went into some detail about the inclusion of these creatures in the Prehistoric Planet series which was awesome to hear.

*Tuarangisaurus* mother and baby as seen in season 1 of *Prehistoric Planet*. Image credit: Apple TV Plus, 2024.

*Prehistoric Planet 2* promotional banner depicting the *Mosasaurus* killing a *Turangisaurus*. Image credit: Apple TV +, 2024.

The Prehistoric Planet series that Darren is the palaeontological consultant for is one of the best pieces of palaeomedia we have received on screen in my personal opinion. Darren unsurprisingly could not say whether a third season was in development when I asked him, fingers crossed though for third season for the future!

Overall, Darren’s lecture gave great insight into the palaeobiology and life history of Jurassic marine reptiles, alongside the historical context of fossil hunting and discoveries along the Jurassic Coast.

I have written quite a few articles on this website about Prehistoric Planet in the past such as trailers released, an overview of Prehistoric Planet 2 and an article about the Prehistoric Planet official podcast. These articles are well worth a read if you would like to find out more about the Apple TV + documentary series.

My Palaeontology Outreach

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog post and finding out a bit more about Darren’s palaeontology lecture. You can find out more about my palaeontology research at the research page which details the palaeontology projects I have done before and during my Masters.

For dinosaur palaeobiology information you can check out the dinosaur fact file tab, which displays scientific information on some of the non-hadrosaurid ornithischian and hadrosaurid specimens analysed in my MSc research. You can also find all my science communication links at the scicomm links page of the website.