Super Amazing 183 Million Years Old Dinosaur Era Bones Are Found With Skin And Scales Intact

This is absolutely amazing that in the Southern Germany, 183 million years old dinosaur era bones are found with skin and scales intact and it’s Plesioptery wildi fossil and this will help us to understand more about Plesiosaurs (ancient marine reptiles) in detail, it’s a revolutionary discovery.

It features rare soft tissue preservation, including skin, tail fin, and scales and the fossil is initially found in 1940 but is being studied right now.

183 Million Years Old Dinosaur Era Bones Are Found With Skin And Scales Intact

These findings can help us realize the appearance, potential color, movements, their structure, and more extra details of such amazing marine sea reptiles.

They lived during the Mesozoic era and are not dinosaurs but are reptiles.

The presence of rare soft tissues, skin, keratin and scales makes this fossil a rare thing to discuss about as these things till now are not found commonly on marine reptiles especially from the Jurassic Period.

Labelled as MH7, the fossil specimen discovered in 1940, it’s a region known for it’s fossil-rich Posidonia shale near Holzmaden.

For many decades, the specimen was unprepared researchers began to remove the surrounding limestone carefully and realized that the fossil contains patches of soft tissues.

🚨 New plesiosaur paper 🚨
I'm pleased to announce that our paper on the plesiosaur Plesiopterys wildi has been published today in PeerJ. In our study, led by @miguelpmarx, we describe a new and previously undescribed specimen. #science #paleontology #research
1/4 pic.twitter.com/xkaYHwWTQb

— Sven Sachs (@dinosven) March 31, 2025

It’s extremely rare that there are fossilized fossil tissues containing skin and internal organs.

To identify smooth skin in the tail region as well as scales along the rear edge of the flippers, range of various techniques were implemented and this analysis provides unparalleled information to study these extinct marine-reptiles in detail.

The Story Of Flippers That Shows Signs Of Specialized Movement

• Flippers were covered with tiny, triangular scales made of beta-keratin a tough protein found in reptiles and the fossils were tested under a microscope
• These sturdy flippers really helped the animal to move with high precision and even control underwater
• Made of alpha-keratin the skin on tail were quite smooth suggesting a different function
• Different parts of the body use to specially adapt in swimming and steering and this was due to the difference in the texture
• Apart from mosaic from smooth skin and scales, it was incredible moment to visualize cells in thin sections of the fossilized plesiosaur’s skin
• Marx was shocked that a fossil around 183 million years old had skin cells preserved that almost looked like the modern skin
• Discovery of melanosomes was shocking, and it’s a tiny structure that carries pigments in the skin of the tail and this means the animals must have different patterns or variation in skin color almost not like flat or plain look that scientists used to imagine for reptiles from the dinosaur era
• The pigmentation might have played role in camouflage or communication
• The tail might have helped in acceleration of speed while swimming and and the animal could have moved effectively

All thanks to the environment where the fossil was preserved for such a long time ” The Posidonia Shale” it’s an ancient seabed with low oxygen levels, as it helped in slow decay and sometimes allowed soft tissues to fossilized wit the bones.

For marine reptiles, these kinds of preservations are rare , and this makes MH7 a rare finding and extremely important discovery for paleontologists.

For the last many decades, the study was difficult and as of today, we have so much information to look into and understand everything in detail.

Conclusion On Super Amazing 183 Million Years Old Dinosaur Era Bones Are Found With Skin And Scales Intact

Studying more about the Dinosaur Era is amazing and since not only researchers and scientists but rather everyone around the world is interested to know more about dinosaurs, these discoveries will help us better understand how our Earth has evolved over the years.

Plesioptery wildi fossil can help us realize much more about Earth, and it’s development and such sea creatures are important to study as since till today around 99% of the sea-floor is undiscovered hence we may even get an idea of what lies beneath the surface.