Oldest dinosaur found in Whitby

BRITAIN’S oldest sauropod dinosaur has been identified from a fossil found on the Yorkshire coast. The backbone from the Middle Jurassic period – about 176million years ago – was found on a beach at Whitby after it fell off a cliff face.

It comes from a group of dinosaurs – including the brontosaurus – that were some of the Earth’s largest land animals, and represents the earliest skeletal record of this type of dinosaur from the UK.

The find is incredibly rare, as Middle Jurassic rocks are only exposed in a few areas including China and Argentina, and adds to existing evidence that this part of England was once Britain’s own ‘Jurassic World’, say researchers from the University of Manchester.