Australian researchers find 100 million-year-old fossil in Queensland

Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Australian paleontologists said on Wednesday they have discovered the complete skeleton of an ancient large, long-necked marine reptile in the Queensland desert that is about 100 million years old.

The researchers from the Queensland Museum Network said the ancient plesiosaur was discovered in the remote McKinley region and said it could help unlock other evolutionary mysteries.

"We were extremely excited when we saw this fossil -- it is like the Rosetta Stone of marine paleontology as it may hold the key to unraveling the diversity and evolution of long-necked plesiosaurs in Cretaceous Australia," Queensland Museum Network Senior Scientist Espen Knutsen said in a statement.

"We have never found a body and a head together, and this could hold the key to future research in this field."

Knutsen, said it was the first known head and body of an Australian elasmosaur, a plesiosaur that lived in the age of the dinosaurs, roamed during the early Cretaceous period. The Elasmosaurus lived in the Eromanga Sea, which covered much of inland Australia from 140 million to 100 million years ago.

"It is rare to find a preserved head and body together as these fragments are usually separated after death due to the long slender neck of this animal," Queensland Museum said. "Several other specimens including fragments from an ichthyosaur were also collected and will be transported to Museum of Tropical Queensland in Townsville for further research."