Australian researchers have found that the bizarre long-necked plesiosaurs - one of the most recognisable animals from the dinosaur era and inspiration for the Loch Ness myth - ate a much wider variety of food than once thought.
This contributed to their remarkably long survival as a species, the scholars say.
In a paper published this week in the international journal Science, Colin McHenry, from the University of Newcastle, Dr Alex Cook, of the Queensland Museum, and Dr Steve Wroe, from the University of Sydney, describe their studies of two fossil plesiosaurs collected from the rocks of the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland.
Researchers found crabs and bits of broken clam and snail shell in the stomach region of the fossils, showing the animals were not just the specialist hunters of free-swimming prey they were traditionally thought to be.
This discovery, Colin believes, may help explain the extraordinary success of plesiosaurs, a dominant marine reptile group for 135 million years.
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