Ancient Swimming Reptiles Uncovered

A foot-long reptile that swam in Triassic lakes - as dinosaurs began to dominate the Earth - has left a treasure trove of well-preserved fossils in a Virginia quarry.

With 90 specimens of Tanytrachelos, researchers at Virginia Tech hope to fill in the family tree of Protosauria, a suborder of aquatic and terrestrial reptiles that lived some 200 million years ago.

Tanytrachelos had an unusually long neck and a lizard-like body, much like its fellow protosaur, Tanystropheus - a nine-foot-long beast, whose fossils have been found in the European Alps. Both reptiles are assumed to have been fish-eaters.

Having such a large collection of Tanytrachelos fossils, spanning 350,000 years during the Triassic period, will hopefully give scientists a better understanding of how the animal's shape may have evolved. Fortunately, many of the fossils have all the bones still put together.

"They must have been buried really fast or left completely undisturbed after they died," said Michelle Casey of Virginia Tech.

-- Michael Schirber

Credit: Leon Atkinson, Virginia Museum of Natural History