Villers-sur-Mer
Villers-sur-Mer is a commune in the Calvados department in Normandy, northwestern France. As of 2023, the population of the commune was 2,440.
Geography
The commune is located on the French coast of the English Channel, on the Côte Fleurie, between Deauville and Houlgate, approximately 200 km from Paris.It is the northernmost French commune through which falls the Prime meridian of the world. The latter is represented on the seafront promenade with a blue mark on the ground and on the parapet. This mark is positioned 32 metres west of the actual meridian in use today, the IERS Reference Meridian.
Paleontology
Numerous fossils of vertebrates were found in the Jurassic Vaches-Noires cliffs in Villers-sur-Mer. Remains include marine reptiles, in particular teleosaurids and metriorhynchids, coelacanths, a huge suspension-feeding fish Leedsichthys and dinosaurs. A 2.5 m-long metriorhynchid skeleton, assigned to Metriorhynchus cf. superciliosus, is unique due to the preserved undigested food in its stomach: the remains of invertebrates and gill apparatus of Leedsichthys. This content indicates that large fishes were not the main diet of these thalattosuchians and this individual likely devoured already dead Leedsichthys. It is also widely known by ammonite specialists.Villers-sur-Mere is known for the large topiary dinosaurs facing the sea from the garden of the office of tourism. In certain years, a baby dinosaur is added to the garden. There is a small museum in the enclosure of the office of tourism, which has an outline of the resources and discoveries, along with the Paléospace l'Odyssée, which covers topics as varied as the Greenwich Meridian, the nature and history of the marshland surrounding the town, and fossils found in the nearby Vaches Noires cliffs.
History
It seems that Villers-sur-Mer was more akin to a group of hamlets during the early 19th century. According to the Cassini map, Villers at that time was made up of a church, two farms, and a castle.Curiosity
On the beach of Villers-sur-Mer, the famous last scene of the first film by François Truffaut was shot: Les Quatre Cent Coups ends with a freeze frame of its boy hero running towards the sea.n 1978, Villiers-Sur-Mer was twinned with the English village of Wickham.