Fossils and sea monsters bring David Attenborough to Dorset
He’s best known for his passionate accounts of the natural, living world, but even creatures long since disappeared from our planet continue to fascinate Sir David Attenborough.
Last year, his documentary Attenborough And The Giant Dinosaur attracted an impressive 7.5 million viewers, and his second exploration into the world of fossils looks likely to repeat that success.
“I thought it would be nice to make a programme about a real excavation,” reveals the naturalist when we meet to discuss his new one-hour documentary, Attenborough And The Sea Dragon, broadcast on BBC One this Sunday.
“I wanted to follow the excitement of when it happens, because you don’t know what the next thing’s going to be.”
It was an idea Attenborough had been entertaining for some time, so when fossil hunter Chris Moore, an old friend, called to say he’d found part of an ichthyosaur paddle unlike anything he’d ever seen before, the opportunity to make a documentary was too good to resist.
What’s the story about?
Confident he may have stumbled upon a ‘new’ species of ichthyosaur, a large marine reptile existing up to 250 million years ago, Moore set about finding the remainder of the creature along Dorset’s Jurassic Coast in Lyme Regis – and Attenborough came along for the ride.
The Press Association
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