#tanystropeid

[typhlonectes]

Baby ‘Sea Monster’ Found Inside Fossil Tanystropheid Mother

The long-necked pair offer rare evidence that an ancient group that included dinosaurs and birds was capable of live birth.

Finding a creature curled inside the belly of an ancient sea beast might not seem surprising at first. After all, the huge fossil belonged to a water reptile with a ridiculously long neck and a knack for swallowing its prey whole.

But when paleontologists took a closer look, they found that the extra fossil inside its body was no meal: Instead, the giant animal was a mother.

In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications, an international team describes a 245-million-year-old Dinocephalosaurus (famaily Tanystropheidae, a group of protosaurs) fossil with the preserved remains of a fetus inside...