Plesiosaur fossils discovered in an ancient riverbed suggests some species, traditionally thought to be sea creatures, may have lived in freshwater. Fossils of small plesiosaurs, long-necked marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs, have been discovered in a 100-million-year-old river system tha
Artist’s impression of spinosaurus and plesiosaur in a river. Credit: Dr. Nick Longrich/University of Bath
The fossils that were found include bones and teeth from three-meter-long adults and an arm bone from a 1.5-meter-long baby. They indicate that these creatures routinely lived and fed in freshwater, alongside frogs, crocodiles, turtles, fish, and the huge aquatic dinosaurThese fossils suggest the plesiosaurs were adapted to tolerate freshwater, possibly even spending their lives there, similar to today’s river dolphins.
“The bones and teeth were found scattered and in different localities, not as a skeleton. So each bone and each tooth is a different animal. We have over a dozen animals in this collection.” While marine animals like whales and dolphins wander up rivers, either to feed or because they’re lost, the number of plesiosaur fossils in the river suggests that’s unlikely.
The plesiosaurs belong to the family Leptocleididae — a family of small plesiosaurs often found in brackish or freshwater elsewhere in England, Africa, and Australia. And other plesiosaurs, including the long-necked elasmosaurs, turn up in brackish or fresh waters in North America and China.
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