From the BBC:

Isle of Wight girl Daisy Morris has dinosaur named after her

A nine-year-old girl from the Isle of Wight has had a dinosaur named in her honour after a fossil she found turned out to be an undiscovered species.

Dinosaur fan Daisy Morris from Whitwell stumbled upon the fossilised remains on Atherfield beach four years ago.

A scientific paper stated the newly discovered species of pterosaur would be called Vectidraco daisymorrisae.

Fossil expert Martin Simpson said this was an example of how "major discoveries can be made by amateurs".

'Washed away'

The Morris family approached Southampton University's 'Fossil Man' Mr Simpson with Daisy's finds in 2009.

"I knew I was looking at something very special. And I was right," said Mr Simpson.

The fossil turned out to be a new genus and species of small pterosaur; a flying reptile from 115 million years ago in the Lower Cretaceous period.

The new species and name was confirmed in a scientific paper published on Monday.

Mr Simpson said the island's eroding coastline meant the fossil would have been "washed away and destroyed if it had not been found by Daisy".

The pterosaur has since been donated to the Natural History Museum which recently named the Isle of Wight as the "dinosaur capital of Great Britain".

The confirmation of Vectidraco daisymorrisae comes a week after the discovery on the island of an almost complete skeleton of a 12-feet long dinosaur.