DINOSAUR Isle's Alex Peaker has shared with the County Press how excited he is to have a new species of dinosaur on display at the museum.
Yesterday (Thursday), it was revealed a dinosaur with an unusually large nose has been identified as a new species by the University of Portsmouth and scientists from London's Natural History Museum.
The Brighstoneus Simmondsi was discovered by a retired GP on the Isle of Wight, more than 40 years after the fossil was recovered from the ground.
"This fantastic new discovery is so important, because it shows how important it is for people to be out there looking for these things that add to our understanding of fossils," said Alex, a collections officer at the museum.
"It's so great that so many people are out there, looking for these things, finding them, bringing them into places like our museum, and allowing us to recognise when they are new."
It is thought the Simmondsi' bulbous nose could have been used as a sexual signal to attract females, or as a warning to scare away male opponents.
Read more: Bulbous nosed dinosaur from 1978 was new Isle of Wight species
Jeremy Lockwood set out to prove Iguanodon — also known at the 'cattle of the Cretaceous' — were not the only dinosaurs here on the Island.
He said: "There's quite a few different dinosaurs on the Isle of Wight, but the vast majority come from a type of dinosaur called the Iguanodontia.
"Over the last century, they've tended to be assigned to two different sorts.
"The wisdom has been that most of the bones we find come from one or the other of these two species.
"But I felt, looking at the bones, that there was probably more variation in them than could easily be understood by just two different sorts of animals.
"So I embarked upon doing a PHD and started searching through the bones to see if we could find differences."
Jeremy went through every Iguanodon bone ever discovered on the Isle of Wight and hit the jackpot with a nasal bone like no other.
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