The reptile had a long neck, the scientists found.
Scientists in Scotland have made a remarkable discovery of a 240-million-year-old "Chinese dragon" fossil. According to the BBC, the 16-feet-long fossil belongs to a long aquatic reptile from the Triassic period. The species is called Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, and has been dubbed "dragon" because of its extremely long neck. The discovery was made by an international team and displayed it at the National Museums Scotland. The fossil was found in Guizhou Province in southern China, as per an ABC News report.
Dr Nick Fraser, who was part of the international team, told the BBC that the fossil belongs to "a very strange animal".
"It had flipper-like limbs and its neck is longer than its body and tail combined," he added.
The long neck could have allowed Dinocephalosaurus orientalis to search for food in crevices under the water.
"This discovery just adds to the weirdness of the Triassic. And every time we look in these deposits, we find something new," said Dr Fraser.
Scientists said the animal is similar to Tanystropheus hydroides, a marine reptile from the Middle Triassic period.
"Both reptiles were of similar size and have several features of the skull in common, including a fish-trap type of dentition. However, Dinocephalosaurus is unique in possessing many more vertebrae both in the neck and in the torso, giving the animal a much more snake-like appearance," ABC News quoted the research team as saying.
The international team also said that the reptile was "clearly very well adapted to an oceanic lifestyle," as indicated by the flippered limbs and "exquisitely preserved" fishes in its stomach region.
The team includes experts from Scotland, Germany, the United States and China. They studied the fossil over the course of ten years at the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing but made their announcement public on Friday.
The study has been published in the journal 'Earth and Environmental Science: Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh'.