Attenborosaurus: A celebrity reptile

Sir David has many animal and plant species named after him, but this namesake is particularly special.

In this instance, the broadcaster has a whole genus – a group of related organisms with similar features – named after him. The species on which the genus is based, called a type species, is Attenborosaurus conybeari.

Watch Sir David Attenborough talking about this namesake specimen in a Washington Post YouTube video.

What was Attenborosaurus?

Attenborosaurus was a plesiosaur, a reptile with a long neck, round body and four limb paddles. It lived about 190 million years ago and swam in tropical seas that covered land which now makes up the south coast of England.

Where and when was Attenborosaurus found and named?

When the remains of this animal were first discovered on the Jurassic Coast in 1880, they were referred to as Plesiosaurus conybeari.

The original specimen was destroyed in 1940, during the Second World War, when a bomb fell on Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery.

Now we house the most complete copy – a plaster cast that you can see high up on the wall in our Fossil Marine Reptiles gallery. Since the original fossil was destroyed, this cast of the skeleton is now the type specimen.

It was renamed after Sir David in 1993 by palaeontologist Robert Bakker, who realised this animal was different enough from other plesiosaurs to deserve its own genus, Attenborosaurus.

After the name was officially declared, Sir David paid a visit to the Natural History Museum to visit the fossil reptile.

Palaeontologist Angela Milner, who passed away in August 2021, hosted Sir David. “When the animal was named after him he was so thrilled – like a dog with two tails,” she said.