Steve Etches

Steve Etches, MBE (born in 1949) is an English plumber, fossil collector and preparator in Kimmeridge, on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.

From an early age on, Etches began to find, collect and restore the fossils he found on the Jurassic Coast.

Etches has won many prizes for his palaeontology and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen in 2014.

The skull of the pterosaur Cuspicephalus was collected from the Kimmeridge Clay by Etches in December 2009 and then named by him and David Martill in 2013.

A large pliosaur skull is the subject of a BBC documentary, Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster, which aired on 1 January 2024.

Etches in the workshop at The Etches Collection in Kimmeridge , Dorset
View of the main gallery in The Etches Collection
The skull of Cuspicephalus , a pterosaur found at Kimmeridge Bay [ 11 ]