Europa Press Madrid
Madrid
Updated Friday, March 15, 2024-20:31
635 million years ago The 'footprints' of the oldest animal
Comparisons with new fossil finds of a similar marine reptile show that
Trachelosaurus fischeri
, described in the early 20th century, is the oldest long-necked marine reptile.
An international team of paleontologists published the results of this research on the
247 million-year-old fossil
from Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, in the 'Swiss Journal of Paleontology'.
Trachelosaurus fischeri
was already discovered in the 19th century
in Buntsandstein layers (Middle Triassic) in Bernburg an der Saale, Germany, and was later added to the collection of the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg.
The specimen is currently on loan to the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, where it was re-examined by specialists.
With a half-metre neck, Trachelosaurus fischeri was
first described in a 1918 publication,
but controversy persisted over what type of reptile this fossil actually represented.
This is because Trachelosaurus fischeri has a unique anatomy, including an unusually large number of vertebrae, and the relatively poor preservation of the fossil: the skeleton is incomplete and its remains are scattered throughout the rock in which it was preserved.
"Through research on Chinese fossils of the long-necked marine reptile
Dinocephalosaurus
, which I published with my 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.
"Trachelosaurus fischeri is the first fossil of this group of reptiles found outside of China. It is also the oldest long-necked marine reptile known to date," says Dr.
Stephan Spiekman
, an expert on this group of animals at the State Museum. of Natural History of Stuttgart.
After the great mass extinction at the
Permian-Triassic boundary 252 million years ago
, there was a very rapid diversification of new reptile species both on land and in water at the beginning of the Triassic period.
Among them were the first long-necked marine reptiles.
How these complex evolutionary biological developments took place is an important topic of research.
Scientists suspect that Trachelosaurus fischeri was washed into shallow waters 247 million years ago, since
footprints of land animals are also preserved
in the rock in which the fossil is preserved .
For researchers, the discovery and its re-evaluation are another step towards a
better understanding of marine ecosystems
from the early Triassic.
The history of the fossil shows the importance of the collections of historical museums and universities for natural history research, the authors of the study emphasize.
New discoveries from different parts of the world allow scientists
to periodically reinterpret
what was already discovered many years, sometimes even centuries ago, and which is carefully preserved in museums.