Dino-hunter discovers 48 species in 4 years
For most fossil hunters finding a new species is a career defining moment ... not so for Dr Steve Sweetman, he's discovered 48 in just FOUR years.
What makes it all the more impressive is that the Portsmouth University expert didn't have to travel more than 10 miles from his boyhood home to do so.
Dr Sweetman took three-and-a-half tonnes of mud from the Isle of Wight - where he lived as a child - dried it and examined each grain under a microscope in search of tiny fossils.
The lucky expert said that in the very first sample he took he discovered a new species and they just kept coming ... prompting some to question whether he is making them up.
The palaeontologist's find includes eight dinosaurs, six mammals and 15 different types of lizard dating back 130 million years.
"It has taken me just four years of hard graft to make my discoveries," he said.
"In the very first sample I found a tiny jaw of an extinct newt-sized, salamander-like amphibian and then new species just kept coming.
"With these discoveries I can paint a really detailed picture of the creatures that scurried at the feet and in the shadows of the dinosaurs,"
Steve grew up on the Isle of Wight, sometimes referred to as ‘Dinosaur Island’ as it is the richest source of dinosaur remains in Europe.
He has always been interested in fossils and decided to return there after 25 years on the mainland.
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