Friday 6 January 2012

When did prehistoric marine reptiles die out?


German marine reptile find rewrites fossil record
German experts have found a new species of prehistoric marine giant from a time when most of that family of reptiles were thought to have died out.The rare ichthyosaur find from the Braunschweig area, northern Germany, is 130 million years old, dating from the Lower Cretaceous era.Most ichthyosaur fossils date from the Jurassic era, millions of years before. The Braunschweig fossil revelations were reported in the science journal Plos One on Tuesday. The new type of ichthyosaur, discovered during roadworks in 2005, has been called Acamptonectes densus - "Stiff Swimmer"

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