CRYPTOLINK: Researchers Discover Rare Fossil Of Large Marine Reptile

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me.

Researchers Discover Rare Fossil Of Large Marine Reptile: Artist rendition of elasmosaur plesiosaurs. (Photo : UA student Asher Elbein.)

Researchers from the University of Alabama have discovered the fossilized remains of a large marine reptile that reportedly dominated the seas 80 million years ago.

Middle-school student Noah Traylor discovered the rare fossil during a University of Alabama expedition June 20. The fossil was later confirmed to be the neck vertebra of an elasmosaur, which is a subgroup of the late Cretaceous plesiosaurs.