A fossil discovered in the Australian outback that is 100 million years old could be a new species.
Queensland Museum Network palaeontologists with the remains of an elasmosaur / Credit: Queensland Museum Network
In western Queensland, Australian paleontologists have discovered the first elasmosaur fossil discovered on the continent.
Three fossil aficionados often comb the ranges of their privately-owned outback station in search of prehistoric remains, and they recently discovered the 100-million-year-old head and body bones of a marine reptile.
In their earlier explorations, they discovered the remains of ichthyosaurs, fish, turtles, and kronosaurus.
The Queensland Museum has compared the simultaneous recovery of the elasmosaur's body and head fossils to discovering the Rosetta Stone of marine palaeontology. This discovery represents a new milestone.
Contrary to common opinion, not all huge prehistoric reptiles are of the dinosauria grouping. Elasmosaurs are a form of plesiosaur, a long-necked marine reptile, that coexisted alongside dinosaurs during the cretaceous period.
"We have never found a body and a head together, and this could hold the key to future research in this field," says Dr. Espen Knutsen, senior scientist and curator of palaeontology at Queensland Museum.
Water is a passion for Queenslanders, and this was especially true during the Cretaceous period
Finding the remnants of a long-necked aquatic reptile in the middle of Australia's arid outback may not seem like the most logical thing in the world.
But that is how time moves on.
Dr Espen Knutsen with the fossilised head of an ancient elasmosaur / Credit: Queensland Museum Network
Much of the territory that is now linked with Queensland was buried beneath a shallow sea and situated at latitudes much closer to the Earth's south pole during the Cretaceous period (146-65 million years ago), when elasmosaurs sailed the Earth.
The region is still the site of frequent discoveries of marine reptile fossils because of the existence of this land-covering sea. Queensland is regarded by palaeontologists as one of the world's most productive areas for discovering dinosaur remains.
The Queensland Museum already has a growing collection of specimens from this taxonomic group, including the most complete elasmosaur skeleton known as "Dave the Plesiosaur," which was discovered in 1999. The discovery of the head and body is a first for an Australian institution.
Unfortunately, Dave has the same issue that many of his sort do: he has lost his mind.
This is due to the fact that after an animal died, the head frequently separated from the rest of the skeleton due to its weight.
But with this recent discovery, it isn't the case, and finding a body and a head together might reveal a new species.
In order to provide more precise information on the animal's biology, Knutsen's team will bring the specimen into the lab for CT scanning and 3D modeling.
The discovery will at the very least improve the museum's comprehension of the variety of plesiosaurs that existed in Australia hundreds of millions of years ago.
"It's going to tell us a lot about the taxonomy, or the species diversity - how many of these were around at the time," claims Knutsen.
The species that swam in this ancient inland sea 100 million years ago are still mostly unknown to us, despite the fact that humans have been collecting fossils from outback Queensland for roughly 150 years or so.
"It's a lovely specimen to display to the public, but it's crucial to understanding what we're doing to advance knowledge of these creatures. It's a wonderful time."
