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Ancient marine reptiles discovered

Bangkok, Sept 03: Scientists have identified two ancient reptiles that swam in ice-cold waters off Australia 115 million years ago and are among the first of their kind found from the period soon after the Jurassic era, researchers said.

The discoveries - Umoonasaurus and Opallionectes - belonged to a group of animals called plesiosaurs, long-necked marine reptiles that lived during the time of the dinosaurs.

Researchers, led by paleontologist Benjamin Kear and a team from the University of Adelaide and the South Australian museum, identified the new species after piecing together fossils from 30 individuals collected from an opal mine over the past 30 years.

"This is like the dark ages of marine reptile evolution," kear said. "No one until now really had good evidence from the fossil records of marine reptiles - what was going on in the large vertebrae of the marine ecosystems.

They are effectively telling us what was going on."

The team's findings were recently published in both the international journal paleontology and the online edition of biology letters, a periodical published by the prestigious Royal Society of London.

Umoonasaurus was a Rhomaleosaurid, a kind of plesiosaur that was the "killer whale equivalent of the Jurassic" period, Kear said.

It was distinguished by its relatively small size of around 2.4 meters and three crest-like ridges on its skull.

"Imagine a compact body with four flippers, a reasonably long neck, small head and short tail much like a reptilian seal," Kear said.

[slitheringin]

Cool! Makes ya wonder what else was out there then. I'll bet we don't know the half of reptile history.