A team of researchers from the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Vienna identified the fossils, which had been discovered several years ago, as teeth and parts of a snout from animals that lived around 130 million years ago. According to the scientists, more recent finds of this type are rare.
The fossils come from the Schrambach Formation in Upper Austria, a rock stratum in the Northern Limestone Alps, and the Rossfeld Formation in Salzburg. The tooth is probably around 132 million years old, the snout around two million years younger. From earlier epochs, there have already been finds of ichthyosaurs in Austria, explained NHM paleontologist Alexander Lukeneder.
The finds made by Karl Bösendorfer from Pinsdorf and Alfred Leiblfinger from Golling were analyzed over years of research, and the animals were also reconstructed in 3D. According to Lukeneder, the single tooth, which is in the house of nature, suggests a dinosaur with a size of 1.5 to two meters. The relic of the snout, now in the NHM, may have come from an animal about four meters long.
Source: Nachrichten
