Plesiosaurs were remarkable marine reptiles that once thrived in the vast expanses of ancient ocean. They were long-necked predators that dominated the seas during the Mesozoic era, while dinosaurs ...

The discovery of preserved skin on a 183-million-year-old plesiosaur is revolutionizing our understanding of these extinct marine reptiles. By analyzing the soft tissues of this fossil, researchers ...

Skeleton of the new plesiosaur at the Urwelt-Museum Hauff in Holzmaden, Germany. Credit: Klaus Nilkens/Urwelt-Museum Hauff Scientists at Lund University analyzed soft tissue from a ...

The soft tissue of a plesiosaur has been studied in detail for the first time, revealing that the marine reptiles, which lived during the age of dinosaurs and went extinct at the same time ...

Fossilized soft tissue is exceptionally rare in plesiosaur fossils. The discovery of a well-preserved fossil is helping researchers learn more about an iconic Jurassic-period species. The ...

It's additionally possible that the hard scales could have helped the plesiosaurs maintain traction and avoid injury as they "bottom-walked" along the seabed while grazing on bottom-dwelling mollusks.

Reconstruction of the new plesiosaur with scales on the flipper and smooth scale-less skin along the body as informed by this new plesiosaur fossil. This is a significant update to how we reconstruct ...

Serpentine-necked, four-flippered plesiosaurs were among the most successful marine predators in the time of dinosaurs. A remarkably complete and well-preserved fossil has revealed that at least some ...

Plesiosaur skeleton. Image by eileenmak, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons The Mesozoic Era, often referred to as the ...

The discovery of a well-preserved fossil is helping researchers learn more about an iconic Jurassic-period species. The plesiosaur, considered a successful marine predatory ancient species, may have ...