A FOSSIL bone discovered on the Yorkshire coast has been identified as being Britain’s oldest sauropod dinosaur by experts from the University of Manchester.

The vertebra originates from a group of dinosaurs that includes the largest land animals to have ever walked on Earth.

The fossil of the sauropod, which is often referred to as a ‘brontosaur' and dates back about 176 million years, was found near Whitby after falling out of a cliff face.

The find represents the earliest skeletal record of this type of dinosaur from the United Kingdom and adds to existing evidence that Yorkshire was once Britain’s very own ‘Jurassic World.'

The sauropods possessed distinctive long necks and tails, small heads, a large body and walked on all fours. Some species grew up to 115 feet long and possibly weighed as much as 80 tonnes.

Professor Phil Manning and his university team used X-Ray Tomography to study the fossil bone, which is now held in the collections at the Yorkshire Museum in York, and their description of the sauropod appears in a paper published in the Journal PLOS ONE.

Prof Manning said: "It was a splendid surprise to come face-to-face with a fossil vertebra from the Jurassic rocks of Yorkshire that was clearly from a sauropod dinosaur.

“This fossil offers the earliest ‘body fossil’ evidence for this important group of dinosaurs in the United Kingdom, but it is impossible to define a new species based upon this single bone.”

The vertebra will be on show at the museum from next Monday. For more information visit www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk