Precioauro’s remarkable fossil retains its skin and scales

The soft tissue of the Pleciosaurus was first studied in detail, revealing that marine reptiles living in the dinosaur era and simultaneously extinct, had similar scales to modern sea turtles.

The 183 million years of 4.5 meters long Plesiosaurus fossil known as the MH7 was first excavated in 1940 from a quarry near Holzmadden, Germany, but was intended to protect it during World War II. He was buried in the museum garden. . It then spent the next 75 years in storage until it was finally assembled in 2020 and ready to study.

Miguel Marx Lund University in Sweden and his team provided thin sections of fossils. The minerals then melted and were treated with organic ruins. This allowed them to study the microscopic structure of fossil tissue.

Although at least eight other plesiosaurus fossils are known to have soft tissue conservation, most are historically important museum specimens and are used to study them using destructive sampling methods. It's impossible to do, says Marx. “This is the first time we have performed a detailed analysis of fossilized soft tissues from Plesiosaurus,” he says.

The team was surprised to find that the reptiles have both areas of smooth, scaly skin. “Together, this plesioaurus was an interesting chimera between a scaled green sea turtle-like thing and scale. [smooth-skinned] Leatherback turtle,” says Marx. “I would have expected this plesiosaurus to be as scaleless as modern Fischozard.”

The scaled skin of the flippers, he says, helped the plesiosaurus swim in the water, perhaps by providing stiffness, or migrated along the seabed while searching for food. Scaleless skins on the rest of the body would have reduced the impact of drag when swimming.

“The actual appearance of the long neck plesio sauce is truly everyone's guess, but thanks to this new fossil, we now have a better idea,” says Marx.