An amateur archaeologist has stumbled across what is believed to be a fossilised Jurassic reptile while walking his dogs on a UK beach.
Jon Gopsill, 54, was amazed when his dogs led him to the remains of an almost two-metre-long fossil, unearthed by recent storms on the coast of Somerset.
Gopsill, a psychiatric nurse, believes the fossil belongs to a prehistoric sea creature known as an ichthyosaur - which lived between 201 million and 145.5 million years ago.
Dr Mike Day, a curator in the Natural History Museum's Earth Sciences department, confirmed to the Daily Mail that the skeleton likely belongs to an ichthyosaur.
"Based on the number of bones in the pectoral paddle, the apparent absence of a pelvic girdle as well as the distinctive 'hunch' of the back, this is likely to be the remains of an ichthyosaur," he told the outlet.
"It's not possible to identify the exact type from these images alone, however."
Gopsill told the publication that he realised the fossilised skeleton was "amazing, museum-quality stuff" upon further inspection.
"I went a bit closer and thought, 'wow'... as soon as I saw it, I knew I had found something special," he said.
"I thought it was obviously a fossilised sea creature, possibly an ichthyosaur... it really is incredible that it has survived for such a long time."
The 54-year-old has notified Somerset Heritage and the Natural History Museum of his exciting discovery.
Gopsill said he always keep an eye out for preserved remains and has a collection of ammonites, the shells of extinct marine molluscs.
West Somerset's northern bays are regarded as a hotspot for fossils, with its own Jurassic and Triassic rocks. Ichthyosaur remains have previously been discovered in the Somerset area.
Ichthyosaurs, which somewhat resembled present-day porpoises, were most abundant during the Jurassic period before their disappearance in the Cretaceous - several million years before the extinction of dinosaurs, according to professor and paleontology researcher Ryosuke Motani.
