Sometimes it pay off off to have a second look at something even over 100 years later . Thefossil remainsof amarine reptilethat lived 247 million years ago have been re - examined 106 years after it was first described . The research worker have concluded that this meansTrachelosaurus fischeriis the world ’s oldest long - necked marine reptile .
Trachelosaurus fischeriwas first discovered back in 1918 in the level of Buntsandstein sandstone in Bernburg an der Saale , Germany . At the metre there was some degree of confusion and contention about what kind of animal this fossil present . This is because the fossil is something of a mess with stiff scattered across the rock in which it was preserved and not arrange in an anatomically organize way .
Originally , Trachelosaurus fischeriwas thought to be a reptile of 150 - 170 centimeters ( 4.9 - 5.5 feet ) long with a belittled nous and very long neck with around 21 vertebrate , short limb , and a moderately farsighted keister , the team compose in their newspaper . However , other investigator came to look at the fossil and several revisions and changes to the compartmentalization ofT. fishcerihave been made over the years .
Comparison ofTrachelosaurus fischeriwith other marine reptile tanysaurians.Image Credit: Image Credit: Spiekman et al., Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, 2024 (CC BY 4.0)
Some suggested that the fossil was a protorosaur that fit into theSquamataorder , while others think thatT. fischerishould be assign to its own sept the Trachelosauridae . The fogy has always been something of a mystery with various researchers diffident which other specimens it was closely relate to .
" Trachelosaurus fischeriis the first fossil of this reptile group to be found outside of China . It is also the previous long - necked nautical reptilian known to engagement , " Dr Stephan Spiekman , an expert on this grouping of animals at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart , said in a translatedstatement .
Since the discovery ofTrachelosaurus fischeri , many more dodo of similar looking marine reptiles have been found , however , most of these are have intercourse from Chinese deposits . By looking close at these fossils , the team come in up with criteria that groupT. fischeriand other Chinese fossil , most notably the amply marine reptileDinocephalosaurus orientalis , make a clade to assort them called Tanysauria .
" Through enquiry on Chinese fossils of the long - necked marine reptileDinocephalosaurus , which Ipublished with colleaguesjust a few weeks ago , we were able to solve the mystery ofTrachelosaurus fischeri . The anatomy shows us that it is closely related toDinocephalosaurus , " continued Dr Spiekman .
At the commencement of the Triassic period , there was a large increment of new reptile specie both in the seas and walking on land after the extinction issue approximately 252 million years ago . The team think the marine reptilian was rinse into shallow waters as tetrapod footprints can also be consider on some of the seven slabs that make up the dodo .
The writer accentuate the utilization ofmuseum collectionsin the understanding of this fossil and how valuable they are as resources to better understand the dodo that have been discovered in eld preceding .
The newspaper is put out in theSwiss Journal of Palaeontology .
