Palaeontologist comes face to face with extinct giant buffalo which used to roam the Fens

The stunning discovery was made by palaeontologist Jamie Jordan, 29, during a routine visit to a the quarry, which he has been studying for decades.

Jamie has previously found hundreds of buffalo bones at the site but has never uncovered a complete skull, making his latest find a unique discovery.

The hunter said: “I have been studying the site for years and I have found hundreds of buffalo skulls before but never anything like this - it is very unusual.

“I have mainly come across maybe one half of a skull at a time so it is very unusual to find everything together.”

The hunter said the skull belonged to an adult male bison priscus, a giant prehistoric buffalo which stood at two metres tall and weighed 2,000 pounds in weight.

Jamie and his team first discovered some splintered pieces of bone at the site, which cannot be named due to safety reasons, before they uncovered the entire fossil.

The skull is currently in several pieces but Jamie said once the skull has been cleaned and dried it will fit together again perfectly.

He added: “We have got all the pieces of the skull.

“The skull is wider than my chest and will weigh around 30kg-35kg when it is complete.”

Jamie, who also owns Fossils Galore museum, in March, believes he has previously found fossils belonging to the same skeleton and plans to excavate them further.

The palaeontologist was also part of the team which discovered a rare 132-million-year-old Iguanodon skeleton in a Surrey brick quarry in 2017.

The skull will take around two months to preserve and members of the public can watch the team working on the rare fossil at Fossils Galore museum.

Once the skull is complete, it will go on public display at Jamie’s museum, along with many of his other extraordinary finds.