(Claw of Baryonyx walkeri) Baryonyx means 'heavy claw'. Unusually for a carnivorous dinosaur we know it ate fish as scientists have found fish scales and teeth with its fossil where its stomach would have been.

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Fossil Marine Reptiles

Learn what was going on in the oceans while the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. See how an ichthyosaur gave birth.

Cases from the Marine Fossil Reptiles gallery.

The Fossil Marine Reptiles gallery can be found on Waterhouse Way and has some of the best examples of these fossils ever found in Britain.

Head of an ichthyosaur fossil.

One of the  ichthyosaur fossils in the gallery is the largest and most complete of its kind. Like many others, it was discovered by determined Victorian fossil-hunter Mary Anning in Lyme Regis – a Dorset town rich in Jurassic fossils.

Pregnant ichthyosaur fossil showing three skeletons of young inside her body
Among the Museum’s many ichthyosaur fossils are examples of two pregnant creatures. One fossil has three skeletons of young inside her body. Another fossil shows a baby being born tail first, just as the mother died.
Huge plesiosaur fossil.

This huge plesiosaur fossil is 187–178 million years old and is one of the earliest known of its kind. The powerful creature preyed on other plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and fish.

Print version
Cartoon image of a hatchet fish on a museum pass

In World War II the Museum was used as a secret base to develop new gadgets for allied spies, including an exploding rat!