AN AMATEUR fossil hunter is hoping to have discovered a new species after unearthing a 7ft skeleton near Penarth beach

Jonathan Bow, 34, discovered the ichthyosaur fossil of a carnivorous marine reptile while walking the shoreline in the Penarth area with his brother and two friends. He said he often looked for fossils around the area as it had a lot of fossils from the Jurassic age of 200million years ago.

Over the last two months he has spent around 70 hours chiselling away at the fossil at home to reveal the complete skeleton in all its glory.

He said it was the largest and most complete one he had ever found, and that when he had contacted the palaeontologist Cindy Howells at the National Museum Wales and showed her pictures of his discovery she was “lost for words”.

“It’s a bit mind blowing as I don’t think people think you can find these sort of creatures in the area,” he said.

“You go to other places and they are world famous for marine reptile creatures like these, with these ichthyosaur creatures found once every few months, but finding a complete one in Wales is unheard of.”

Ichthyosaurs, commonly known as fish lizards, were predatory marine reptiles that swam the world's oceans while dinosaurs walked the land. They appeared in the Triassic period, dying out around 25 million years before the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Mr Bow, who lives in Swansea, said it was quite easy to find the odd piece of bone or vertebrae when fossil hunting, but to find a complete skeleton was rare.

“I think you need an eye for it really,” he said.

“Gone are the days you can just walk and stumble across one that is fully exposed on the beach. These days you sort of have to look for the odd bit of bone poking out of a rock and then investigate to see if there’s anything more. You are looking for lumps and bumps in the rock as its like signatures of the bone underneath.”

He said that the skeleton was in such good condition as it had been “dorsally compressed” and had a “perfect anatomical position”.

Mr Bow, who works as a clinical programmer, added about spotting the discovery: “It was like a white spot against dark grey shale so it stood out as being unusual, but I needed a closer inspection before I realised it was bone and not just a piece of shell or something like that."

He added that he now hoped to have discovered a new species.

“There’s loads of different species, so there’s always hope that when this is researched properly by palaeontologists this will be a new species,” he said.

“If it was a new species I’d maybe have it named after the local area or something like that.”

He added: “If it was a smaller creature I might keep it in my house and put it on the wall or something, but due to the size of it maybe it could go on loan to the museum or make it available for research.”