The fossilized ruins of “most notable” monsters from Jurassic Germany are unprecedented species, new research reports.
The marine reptile, which swam in the prehistoric oceans about 183 million years ago, is given the name Presionectes longicollum, translated into “swimmers near the long neck.”
P. longicollum is a species of plesiosauaroid, an extinct group of long-fed, carnivorous marine reptiles that swim in the Earth’s oceans during an era when dinosaurs dominated the terrestrial environment. This specimen lived in the early Tocarian period (183 million to 174 million years ago) in the early Jurassic period.
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The fossilized specimen is about 10 feet (3 meters) long, resembling the length of a crocodile, with its neck accounting for less than half the total span.
The nearly complete skeleton of the animal contained fossilized soft tissue and bone remnants, allowing scientists to determine that P. longicollum was indeed a newly discovered species.
Research shows that reptile bones were originally excavated from a German quarry in 1978. “The specimen has been in the collection for decades, but previous studies have never fully investigated its distinctive anatomy,” said the study of Sven Sachs, a vertebrate paleontologist at the German Museum of Natural History, in a statement from the museum.
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The results of the survey were published in Peerj magazine on August 4th.
“Our detailed examination revealed an unusual combination of skeletal features that clearly distinguish them from all previously known Preciosoul,” Sachs said. This work demonstrated that Posidonian shale beds contained greater reptile diversity than previously thought.
According to the statement, the new specimen is the oldest known Pleciosaurus from the town of Holtzmadden in southwestern Germany. The animal was not yet an adult when it died, but based on its anatomy, researchers were able to classify it into new genus and species.
The other five almost complete Presion Secton skeletons have been identified in the Posidonian shale and include examples of all three major Precioauro lines.
“This discovery adds another part to the evolutionary puzzle of marine ecosystems at a critical time in the history of the Earth,” said Daniel Magia, a paleontologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, in a statement. The time P. longicollum lived was “marked by significant environmental changes, including major marine anaerobic events that affected marine life around the world,” he said. The event, which depleted oxygen and spiked for acidification in water, caused serious losses in marine biodiversity, including an extinction event that killed around 5% of the world’s families on land and sea.
The fossil is permanently housed at the Natural History Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.
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