In April 2022, Philip Jacobs discovered the snout of a mysterious beast upon a beach on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. This remarkable find was just the beginning! What came next was a daring rescue mission, documented by the BBC and changed our understanding of our prehistoric world, narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

After the initial discovery, Dr Steve Etches MBE, and his team isolated the rest of an impeccably well preserved pliosaur skull amongst a sheer cliff face. And in turn they set themselves the challenge of recovering this incredible find. In short, through sheer determination and ingenuity, a whole lot of rope work, hammers, chisels, some industrial mining tools, a genius mechanical contraption and a total of 18 months of work. What resulted from this successful and risky operation is the most famous pliosaur ever found, a Guinness World Record and an Emmy Award nominated documentary. This is a remarkable story of true British grit, and what can be achieved when you really put your heart into something. An inspirational story of not only one of the most impressive reptiles to have ever existed but the story of the team involved, including the internationally recognised 70+ year old palaeontologist Dr Steve Etches, the ingenious self-taught engineer Rob Vearncombe, world renowned fossil preparator Chris Moore and more. This team achieved something they could never have dreamed of and created a story that continues to echo around the world.

To see the full story watch Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster on BBC iPlayer.

The skull is now on permanent display here at The Etches Collection. But this isn’t the end of the story, we want the body.

Can you help us...?

There is an enormous amount of excitement around this animal, which could potentially answer all our questions about pliosaurs. When recovered, it will be the best pliosaur ever recovered and will become an international inspiration.

Your donation will help us recover this remarkable specimen, preserve it, and display it for the world to see! Areas of focus include:

Superglue: £5

Superglue is an intergral part of Steve's palaeontological work, without this half of our specimens wouldn't be here. £5 buys 1 bottle of this precious substance and may just save part of our pliosaur.

Packaging: £10

When moving fossils, we package them in many ways. If we can we create a plaster field jacket, like we did for the skull. This however, isn't always suitable so we also need good old-fashioned packaging materials. One of Steve's favourite is bubblewrap. Your £10 donation will help get lots of bubblewrap and other packaging.

PPE for one of the team members: £20

We take health and safety very seriously and when performing such a large-scale excavation there is always a risk involved. Your £20 donation will contribute to various protective equipment including individual hard hats, gloves, goggles, dust masks and more.

New hammer, Chisels and hand tools for Steve: £50

Steve is one of the few people who may actually wear out his tools. Every now and then he requires new chisels, hammers, and other excavation tools. Of course, there will be other people who need to use such tools for this dig.

Your £50 contribution will cover a range of hand excavation tools both bought and hired for Steve and the team

One hour’s hire of a 20 ton excavator: £100

We will be using some very heavy machinery for this excavation; this is because we need to move a lot of rock and matrix. Sadly, this machinery is expensive. £100 an hour to be exact. Your £100 donation will contribute towards the hire cost of our large excavators.

Off-road vehicle hire (per day): £250

You may not know this but our dig site isn’t accessible by road. This means we need to drive across more than 2 miles of rough terrain that normal vehicles aren’t equipped for. Your £250 donation covers hire of an off-road vehicle for us to use day to day throughout the excavation.

Rope access for a day: £500

When working on a cliff face, rope access is a necessity; it keeps our team members safe. But it comes at a cost; our wonderful rope experts provide all the necessary safety equipment and expertise to make this happen.

Your £500 donation covers a day's rope safety and contributes to one of the many safety aspects of this excavation.

Essential storage to protect the pliosaur whilst it is being prepped: £1000

One key aspect we have to consider in our plan is where we will store an entire pliosaur. They don’t just fit anywhere.....Your £1000 contribution will cover essential storage of the pliosaur once it’s excavated.

Pay for our plaster: £1500

As part of the rescue efforts of this skeleton we will use a lot of plaster, more specifically a plaster called Herculite. This super tough plaster is used to protect the bones for removal, transport, and storage. This is how we get them from the great big hole we plan to dig over to Steves workshop. We used 6 bags (150KG) of plaster on the skull alone. We estimate we may need up to 1 ton of the stuff to rescue the remaining bones.

For £1500 you can provide as much herculite as we need to conduct this amazing recovery mission

Tool hire for the duration of the excavation: £2500

We will need a variety of different tools, most will be similar to what we used before such as the CP9 guns, a compressor for these, Angle grinders, stone cutters, other power tools etc.

Your £2500 contribution will cover hire of all power tools and associated equipment for the duration of our excavation.

Heras fencing to ensure vital protection of the dig site: £5000

A large dig site like this needs securing despite being quite isolated. We can’t just have anyone wandering into an active quarry site. This comes at quite a substantial cost of approximately £5000, your donation will help keep everyone safe though providing the necessary perimeter fencing for our excavation.

Tele-handler Hire: £10000

For the duration of our excavation we will need a telehandler on site to help retrieve the body from the bottom of the quarried hole. The bones once protected will be beyond safe lifting recommendations for individuals and we will need machinery to do this for us. Your £10,000 will help cover this incredibly important aspect of dig and provide us the necessary equipment to get these bones from that cliff.

Save the Sea Rex £500,000

For just £500,000 we can save the skeleton of the Sea Rex, a timeless piece of British natural history. Something for our nation to be proud of. We have an amazing heritage, and the Jurassic Coast is a spectacular part of that. Our Pliosaur is the most famous animal to come from this world-renowned stretch of coastline and is one of the most spectacular fossils found in the world. It needs to be saved for science, admiration, and the future. Help us save it.

*Tiers are not literal; all money will go towards the cost of the excavation, pliosaur rescue, preparation, restoration or display. The tiers represent approximate costs that may be incurred while undertaking the work we intend to carry out. We are grateful for every contribution and all the assistance we have received and continue to receive.