10m long, 100 million year old snake-headed monster appears in Australia

One of the most terrifying monsters of the dinosaur era has emerged almost completely, with its head and body preserved in ancient rock in western Queensland, Australia.

According to Sci-News, the specimens were initially discovered by the amateur fossil hunter group "Rock Chicks" , then collected and studied by a team of scientists led by paleontologist Espen Knutsen of the Queensland Museum Network.

It was identified as an Eromangasaurus australis , a member of the fearsome elasmosaur group of marine reptiles, a genus of " snake-headed lizards", famous for their long, snake-like necks, topped by a monstrous head with a long snout and sharp teeth, and a body that was almost "standard" for a dinosaur, with four legs replaced by four large, strong fins.

Fossil photo taken among paleontologists, overlaid with graphic "ghosts" to easily visualize the super monster when it was alive - Photo: QUEENSLAND MUSEUM

This Eromangasaurus australis lived about 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, scouring fish and squid in the monster-filled seas of the dinosaur era.

Dr Knutsen said it would be the first known head and torso of an Eromangasaurus australis to be displayed in the Queensland Museum's collection.

"We are incredibly excited to see this fossil - it is like the Rosetta Stone of marine paleontology as it may hold the key to unraveling the diversity and evolution of Australian Cretaceous plesiosaurs," he added.

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued in Memphis in 196 BC by the pharaoh Ptolemy V, written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, ancient Greek, and Demotic script. Thanks to this, modern people had the first basis for translating Egyptian hieroglyphs, which had been lost for many centuries.

The newly excavated super monster fossil is also expected to be a similar "enlightening" stele, because of its completeness from the specimen's condition to its undisturbed arrangement.

Terrifying portrait of Cretaceous sea monster - (Photo: SCITECH DAILY).

"Because these lizards have two-thirds of their body as necks, the head usually separates from the body after death, making it difficult to find fossils that preserve both together," Dr. Knutsen explained.

'We now hold the only head and body of an Eromangasaurus australis in the world and this important find will make a huge contribution to important research on the Cretaceous in Queensland,' said Queensland Museums Network CEO Dr Jim Thompson.

Paleontologists say that during the early Cretaceous period, much of Queensland was covered by a vast, shallow sea called the Eromanga Sea .

So fossilized remains of ancient ocean creatures, including marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs , are commonly found across the state, gradually completing the picture of a mysterious and fierce "sea monster ecosystem."