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(CNN) --
The discovery in Australia of the 100-million-year-old skeleton of a giant marine reptile has been hailed by researchers as a breakthrough that may provide vital clues about prehistoric life.
The remains of this long-necked, 20-foot-tall young plesiosaur, also known as an elasmosaur, were found in August by a third of amateur fossil hunters on a cattle farm in the western hinterland of Queensland.
Espen Knutsen, chief curator of paleontology at the Queensland Museum, compared the discovery to that of the Rosetta Stone, the Ancient Egyptian block of granite rediscovered in 1799 that helped experts decipher the hieroglyphs.
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"We have never found a body and a head together and this could hold the key to further research in this field," Knutsen said in a statement on Wednesday confirming the discovery, adding that it could give paleontologists a greater understanding of the origins. the evolution and ecology of the Cretaceous period in the region.
"Because these plesiosaurs were two-thirds necked, the head often separated from the body after death, making it very difficult to find a fossil that preserves both together," he said.
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The discovery was made by amateur paleontologists known as the "Rock Chicks": Cassandra Prince, her sister Cynthia, and their partner Sally, known only by her first name.
100-million-year-old plesiosaur skull found in Queensland, Australia.
(Photo: Queensland Museum)
Elasmosaurs, which reached 8 to 10 meters in length, lived in the Eromanga Sea, which covered large areas of the Australian outback with water 50 meters deep about 150 million years ago.
Knutsen told CNN that when an elasmosaur died, its decaying body bloated with gases that pushed it to the surface of the water, and the head often fell off when predators rummaged through the carcass, so the findings of whole bodies were infrequent.
He added that since the latest find was a juvenile specimen, it would shed light on how elasmosaurs' body shape changed from youth to adulthood.
"We're going to look at the chemistry of their teeth, which can tell us something about their ecology in terms of habitat, whether they migrated throughout their lives or whether they stayed in the same habitat, and also about their diet," he explained.
Ancient marine reptiles, such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, are not classified as dinosaurs even though they lived around the same time.
Plesiosaurs evolved from land-dwelling ancestors, so they lacked gills and had to surface from time to time to breathe.
It is unknown how long they could stay underwater.
Hobbyist fossil hunter Cassandra Prince with Espen Knutsen from the Queensland Museum.
(Photo: Queensland Museum)
It is the latest major discovery of prehistory to be made in Australia in recent years.
In June last year, scientists confirmed that the 2007 discovery of a fossilized skeleton in Queensland was the country's largest dinosaur.
The dinosaur, nicknamed "Cooper," was about two stories tall and as long as a basketball court.
Two months later, scientists discovered that there was a kind of flying "dragon" that flew over Australia 105 million years ago.
The pterosaur was described by researchers as a "fearsome beast" that preyed on young dinosaurs.
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