The plesiosaur — an aquatic dinosaur as soon as thought to solely reside in saltwater — is now believed to have spent a lot of its time in freshwater, in response to a new examine. The invention is more likely to gasoline believers of the Loch Ness Monster on their pursuit of proving the legend is actual, as some declare "Nessie" was a descendant of the plesiosaur.
"As a scientist, I can by no means say something is inconceivable," paleontologist and lead writer of the examine, Nick Longrich, informed CBS Information correspondent Dana Jacobson. "All hypotheses are on the desk at some stage till they're confirmed false."
He mentioned a group of paleontologists from the College of Bathtub, the College of Portsmouth within the UK and the Université Hassan II in Morocco found "plenty of completely different plesiosaur fossils" inside a 100-million yr previous river system that is now part of Morocco's Sahara Desert. The findings, he mentioned, had been "a bit stunning."
"It signifies this group was in a position to come specialised to use freshwater environments," Longrich mentioned.
The fossils discovered included bones and tooth from each adults and one child plesiosaur scattered alongside completely different localities, which point out the place the animal died in addition to the place the animals lived, scientists mentioned.
"We discovered plenty of fossils suggesting these items had been up there routinely and doubtless spent a lot, if not all, of their lives in freshwater," Longrich mentioned.
Some believers of the centuries-old Loch Ness Monster folktale say the creature was final seen alive within the Loch Ness freshwater physique of water within the Scottish Highlands. However some scientists doubt that an historic dinosaur might have survived within the loch's darkish and frigid water, because it was fashioned solely 10,000 years in the past through the Ice Age.
The current fossil discovery additionally means that the final plesiosaurs went extinct across the similar time as the remainder of the dinosaurs 66 million years in the past, which contradicts claims from some Loch Ness Monster believers who say the creature was final seen alive as current as 1975.
"We might discover the Loch Ness Monster tomorrow. It might be a plesiosaur," Longrich mentioned. "I believe that's, nevertheless, extraordinarily unlikely given the proof we now have at this level."
Nonetheless, the examine's paleontologists mentioned the opportunity of the so-called Loch Ness Monster being associated to a plesiosaur is "believable."