A six-foot long skull of a dinosaur has arrived in Bermuda as part of a forthcoming prehistoric display of marine life that swam through the world's oceans, lakes and rivers 65 million years ago.

A huge skull belonging to an alligator-type creature that measured 45 feet long was discovered in Kansas in 1911.

The skull of the dinosaur, since named a Bunker Tylosaurus, is just one of around 23 exhibits being shipped to the Island for the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute's "Savage Ancient Seas Specimens" show this summer.

Creatures connected with the sea and marine environment have been selected for the five-month exhibition at BUEI, which is also the first time the institute has put on a display of dinosaur and pre-historic creatures. It is costing in the region of $100,000 to have the artefacts ? a mixture of casts, models and actual fossils ? brought to the Island from the US.

Wendy Tucker, at BUEI, said the Institute has also purchased two of the items so that they can be held for future displays once the main exhibition finishes in October. Because the Institute agreed to allow one of the pre-booked items from the much larger display to be re-assigned to another venue in America it has been rewarded with extra dinosaur artefacts that will give visitors to BUEI this summer plenty to look at.

The biggest single display will be a 42ft long-necked dinosaur called Elasmosaurus. Also coming to Bermuda this month is the cast from the head of a gigantic 50-ton shark that has a jaw eight foot high and eight foot wide and became extinct 1.5 million years ago.

A bird with an 11ft wingspan and a skull almost six foot long is also to be put on show along with models and cast of long-gone turtles, fish and marine reptiles. There will be a dinosaur show launch party on June 3 followed by a public opening the following day. The exhibition will remain open throughout the summer to co-incide with school holidays and the tourist season, ending on October 22.