• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

247-Million-Year-Old Fossil Is The World’s Oldest Long-Necked Marine Reptile

March 19, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Sometimes it pays off to have a second look at something even over 100 years later. The fossil remains of a marine reptile that lived 247 million years ago have been re-examined 106 years after it was first described. The researchers have concluded that this means Trachelosaurus fischeri is the world’s oldest long-necked marine reptile. 

Trachelosaurus fischeri was first discovered back in 1918 in the layers of Buntsandstein sandstone in Bernburg an der Saale, Germany. At the time there was some degree of confusion and controversy about what kind of animal this fossil represented. This is because the fossil is something of a mess with remains scattered across the rock in which it was preserved and not arranged in an anatomically organized way. 

Advertisement

Originally, Trachelosaurus fischeri was thought to be a reptile of 150-170 centimeters (4.9-5.5 feet) long with a small head and very long neck with around 21 vertebrates, short limbs, and a moderately long tail, the team write in their paper. However, other researchers came to look at the fossil and several revisions and changes to the classification of T. fishceri have been made over the years. 

Some suggested that the fossil was a protorosaur that fitted into the Squamata order, while others thought that T. fischeri should be assigned to its own family the Trachelosauridae. The fossil has always been something of a mystery with various researchers unsure which other specimens it was closely related to. 

Top image is a skeleton reconstruction of Trachelosaurus fischeri, below Trachelosaurus fischeri is shown again with a size comparison of a scuba diver and three other tanysaurian reptiles.

Comparison of Trachelosaurus fischeri with other marine reptile tanysaurians.

Image Credit: Image Credit: Spiekman et al., Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, 2024 (CC BY 4.0)

“Trachelosaurus fischeri is the first fossil of this reptile group to be found outside of China. It is also the oldest long-necked marine reptile known to date,” Dr Stephan Spiekman, an expert on this group of animals at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, said in a translated statement.

Since the discovery of Trachelosaurus fischeri, many more fossils of similar looking marine reptiles have been found, however, most of these are known from Chinese deposits. By looking closely at these fossils, the team came up with criteria that group T. fischeri and other Chinese fossils, most notably the fully marine reptile Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, creating a clade to classify them called Tanysauria. 

Advertisement

“Through research on Chinese fossils of the long-necked marine reptile Dinocephalosaurus, which I published with colleagues just a few weeks ago, we were able to solve the mystery of Trachelosaurus fischeri. The anatomy shows us that it is closely related to Dinocephalosaurus,” continued Dr Spiekman.

At the beginning of the Triassic period, there was a large increase of new reptile species both in the seas and walking on land after the extinction event approximately 252 million years ago. The team think the marine reptile was washed into shallow waters as tetrapod footprints can also be seen on some of the seven slabs that make up the fossil.

The authors emphasize the use of museum collections in the understanding of this fossil and how valuable they are as resources to better understand the fossils that have been discovered in years past.

The paper is published in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China’s Aug export growth unexpectedly picks up speed, imports solidly up
  2. Bolivian president calls for global debt relief for poor countries
  3. Soccer-Barca boss Koeman grateful for vote of confidence
  4. The Dark Reason Why You Never See Narwhals In An Aquarium

Source Link: 247-Million-Year-Old Fossil Is The World's Oldest Long-Necked Marine Reptile

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Hui Te Rangiora: Old Māori Legend Suggests They May Have Discovered Antarctica 1,000 Years Before Europeans
  • “Potential Impact On Saturn”: Astronomers Appeal For Help As Video Appears To Show Object Hitting The Gas Giant
  • What Is Prosopometamorphopsia? The “Exceedingly Rare” Condition That Made A Patient See Faces As Dragons
  • Are We In An Enormous Void? It Could Explain What’s Wrong With Our Model Of The Universe
  • Woylies Boing Back Into Western Australia Thanks To Groundbreaking Wildlife Project
  • North America’s Oldest Pterosaur And Turtle Fossils Found In Arizona’s Petrified Forest
  • Proposed “Dark Dwarfs” Near The Galactic Center Could Reveal The Nature Of Dark Matter
  • Watch: 18-Kilometer-High Ash Cloud Looms Over Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki After “Explosive” Eruption
  • “ShipGoo001”: Mystery Of Entirely New Lifeform Discovered Coating A Great Lakes Ship
  • Rare White Humpback Whale Calf Filmed By Drone Off Australia’s East Coast
  • Who Was Buried At Cave Of Salome: A Female Disciple, Jesus’ Midwife, Or A Princess?
  • “Hidden” Changes To US Health Data Swapping “Gender” For “Sex” Spark Fears For Public Trust
  • Easter Island Was Never As Isolated As We Thought – Study Puts That “Strange Argument” To Bed
  • If Birds Are Dinosaurs, Why Are None As Big As T. Rexes?
  • Psychologists Demonstrate Illusion That Could Be Screwing Up Our Perception Of Time
  • Why Are So Many Enormous Roman Shoes Being Discovered At Hadrian’s Wall?
  • Scientists Think They’ve Pinpointed Structural Differences In Psychopaths’ Brains
  • We’ve Found Our Third-Ever Interstellar Visitor, Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild, And Much More This Week
  • The “Eyes Of Clavius” Will Be Visible On The Moon Today, Thanks To Clair-Obscur Effect
  • Shockingly High Microplastic Levels Found On Remote Mediterranean Coral Reef Island
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version