Steve Etches,

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language of t ...

(born in 1949) is an English plumber, fossil collector and preparator in

Kimmeridge Kimmeridge () is a small village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula on the English Channel coast in Dorset, England. It is situated about south of Wareham and west of Swanage. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil p ...

, on the

Isle of Purbeck The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the ...

. From an early age on, Etches began to find, collect and restore the

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

he found on the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-Decembe ...

. His collection is now housed in a museum called

The Etches Collection The Etches Collection (also known as the Museum of Jurassic Marine Life) is an independent fossil museum located in the village of Kimmeridge, Purbeck, Dorset, England. It is based on the lifetime collection of Steve Etches, a fossil hunter ...

which was purpose-built, both to house the collection and to replace the deteriorating local village hall. Etches has won many prizes for his

palaeontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

and was made a

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

by the Queen in 2014. In 2017, he also was awarded an

Honorary Doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad ho ...

by the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

. On 22 April 2019, he appeared on the podcast

Trees A Crowd ''Trees A Crowd'' is a natural history podcast presented by actor David Oakes. Creation and reception of the podcast Oakes, as an environmentalist and an ambassador for the Woodland Trust and The Wildlife Trusts, started ''Trees A Crowd'' as a ...

with

David Oakes Rowan David Oakes (born 14 October 1983) is a British actor. He is best known for his roles in the series ''The Pillars of the Earth'', '' The Borgias'', '' The White Queen'', '' Victoria'', '' Vikings: Valhalla'', and for his discursive Natura ...

Significant finds

Etches has been collecting for over 30 years, and in this time he has amassed an important collection of rare and unique fossils. His first find was a flint fossil

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) ...

which he found at age 5. His collection now contains about 2,300 specimens, many of which are scientifically significant.

Ammonite eggs

Whilst

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda ( Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, ...

eggs had previously been described twice within scientific literature, the discovery of 8 clusters of eggs in association with

perisphinctid Perisphinctidae is a family of Middle and Upper Jurassic discoidal ammonites in the order Ammonitida. They have a shell morphology that is mostly evolute, typically with biplicate, simple, or triplicate ribbing. Large forms have simple apertur ...

ammonite by Steve Etches, Jane Clarke and John Callomon in 2008 provides the best preserved example of this rare glimpse into the life cycle of

ammonite Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttle ...

s. The eggs show some

phosphatic In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...

films suggesting that the eggs were already decaying at their time of burial.

Cuspicephalus

The skull of the pterosaur

Cuspicephalus ''Cuspicephalus'' is an extinct genus of monofenestratan pterosaur known from Dorset in England. Its fossil remains date back to the Late Jurassic period. Discovery ''Cuspicephalus'' is known from the holotype MJML K1918, a partial skul ...

was collected from the

Kimmeridge Clay The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for Nor ...

by Etches in December 2009 and then named by him and David Martill in 2013.

Pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the Order (biology), order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cre ...

s are considered rare within the Kimmeridge Clay as the clays were deposited a considerable distance from land and so such finds are thought to result from crash landings, possibly as a result of poor weather. Such a landing on water would be likely be fatal to pterosaurs as their thin, hollow bones would be prone to breaking on impact with the sea, as seen in other pterosaur specimens collected by Steve.

Other finds

Other finds by Etches include an exceptionally well-preserved

dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

wing; the oldest recorded

barnacle A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive ...

displaying colour and a new genus of barnacle that has since been found living in the sea around Japan. A Jurassic species of

ray Ray may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), a bony or horny spine on a fin Science and mathematics * Ray (geometry), half of a line proceeding from an initial point * Ray (gra ...

, '' Kimmerobatis etchesi'' and a deep diving ichthyosaur '' Thalassodraco etchesi'' was named in his honour. These specimens can all be seen in The Etches Collection museum.

Awards

* 1993 – The

Palaeontological Association The Palaeontological Association (PalAss for short) is a charitable organisation based in the UK founded in 1957 for the promotion of the study of palaeontology and allied sciences. Publications The Association publishes two main journals: ' ...

's Award to Amateur Palaeontologists * 1994 – the R. H. Worth Prize of the

Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

* 2005 – the

Mary Anning Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channe ...

Award of the Palaeontological Association * 2006 –

Halstead Halstead is a town and civil parish in the Braintree District of Essex, England. Its population of 11,906 in 2011 Geologists' Association The Geologists' Association, founded in 1858, is a British organisation with charitable status for those concerned with the study of geology. It publishes the ''Proceedings of the Geologists' Association'' and jointly with the Geological Society ...

* 2014 –

Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(MBE) * 2017 –

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

honoris causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad h ...

'' from the

References

External links

The Etches Collection
– official website of the collection and museum {{DEFAULTSORT:Etches, Steve 1949 births British plumbers English palaeontologists Living people Members of the Order of the British Empire People from Purbeck District