New fossils have been found in the waste of a coal mine in Hungary. These fossils belong to an 84 million year old freshwater sea monster. This sea creature called Pannoniasaurus apparently belongs to a family of aquatic reptiles: mosasaurs, which look like a crocodile and a whale mixed together.
This sea monster apparently acted like a croc, instead of using large flippers like the mosasaurs their limbs resembled legs, which may have been used to climb onto rocks to go to the land. It is suggested that they spent a lot of time in the water, but probably could have crawled out going from river to river when water dried up, etc.
National Geographic reports that, when the Hungarian fossils were first announced, many paleontologists thought they belonged to a large land lizard, similar to a Komodo dragon, until evidence for their aquatic origin soon became overwhelming.
To read more about this new discovery go to http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/12/121219-sea-monster-new-species-freshwater-paleontology-science/.
