# Australia’s Lock Ness Monster’s



## Rosemary (Jul 30, 2006)

About 115 million years ago, when the Australian continent sat on the southern polar circle, two species of marine reptiles swam in an outback sea.  These animals were part of an eco-system which is the equivalent of modern day Antartica.  Nowhere else in the world is there such a clear indication of a freezing environment, together with marine repliles.

   These long-necked dinosaurs called umoonasaurus and opallionectes, of the plesiosaurs species, were similar to the popular image of the Loch Ness monster. 

*Umoonasaurus* was about 2.4m long, was a type of plesiosaur considered to be the killer whale of the Jurassic period.  It is named after Umoona, the Aboriginal word for the Cooper Pedy region in South Australia. 

*Opallionectes* was a much larger reptile, about 6m long.  It had masses of needle-like teeth for trapping squid and small fish.  This reptile takes it name for the word meaning ‘the opal swimmer from Andamooka’.

   Thirty opalised fossils found in the Cooper Pedy region have been studied, where the most complete skeletons were found. 

   These plesiosaurus lived in a freezing ocean about 115 million years ago, then about five million years later, this environment disappeared, effectively in a global warming event.


_Source Reuters/Biology_


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