What happens when the monsters from folklore start to turn up in the real world?
A 2m (6ft 5in)-long fossil was extracted from the cliffs of Dorset’s Jurassic Coast this month.
This fossil is one of the most complete specimens of its type ever discovered, giving new insights into this ancient predator.
As the sheet covering the fossil was pulled back, there were immediate gasps from those in the room.
Local paleontologist Steve Etches believes there isn’t any other specimen that matches this one.
Once the fossil was revealed, it was immediately obvious that this skull is huge and beautifully preserved.
“It’s one of the best fossils I’ve ever worked on. What makes it unique is it’s complete,” Etches tells BBC News.
“The lower jaw and the upper skull are meshed together, as they would be in life,” Etches continued.
He went on to say, “Worldwide, there’s hardly any specimens ever found to that level of detail.”
“And if they are, a lot of the bits are missing, whereas this, although it’s slightly distorted – it’s got every bone present,” he raved.
To give you an idea of just how big this creature was, the skull itself is taller than most humans.
It also boasts a whopping 130 teeth, which are all long and razor sharp.
The skull belongs to a pliosaur, a ferocious marine reptile that terrorized the oceans about 150 million years ago.
The pliosaur was the ultimate killing machine and at 10-12m long, with four powerful flipper-like limbs to propel itself at high speed, it was the apex predator in the ocean.
“The animal would have been so massive that I think it would have been able to prey effectively on anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its space,” says Dr Andre Rowe from Bristol University.
“I have no doubt that this was sort of like an underwater T. rex,” he continued.
As for how this one-of-a-kind fossil was discovered, it all started with a stroll along a beach near Kimmeridge Bay on southern England’s famous World Heritage Jurassic Coast.
Steve Etches’ friend and fellow fossil enthusiast Phil Jacobs came across the tip of the snout of the pliosaur lying in the shingle.
It was too heavy to carry, so he went to get Steve. Together, the pair rigged a makeshift stretcher to take the fossil fragment to safety.
After that, a drone survey of the towering cliff face pinpointed a likely location for the rest of the animal.
The only way to excavate it was to abseil down from the top.
Palaeobiologist Prof Emily Rayfield has already examined the large circular openings at the rear of the head.
They tell her about the size of the muscles operating the jaws of the pliosaur, and the forces generated as its mouth snapped shut and crushed its prey.
At the top end, this comes out at about 33,000 newtons. For context, the most powerful jaws in living animals are found on saltwater crocodiles, at 16,000 newtons.
“If you can generate a really powerful bite, you can incapacitate your prey; it’s less likely to get away,” she said of the skull.
A powerful bite means you’re also able to crunch through tissue and bone quite effectively,” the Bristol researcher explained.
Steve Etches will put the skull on display next year at his museum in Kimmeridge – the Etches Collection.
Now, he is focused on extracting the rest of the fossil.
“I stake my life the rest of the animal is there,” he tells BBC News. “And it really should come out because it’s in a very rapidly eroding environment.”