<img src=”https://naked-science.ru/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Oblozhka.jpeg” alt=”Skin and scales found on almost complete plesiosaur skeleton stored in museum for 80 years”/>European paleontologists have studied an exceptionally well-preserved plesiosaur skeleton from the Jurassic period, discovered in Germany back in 1940. At that time, the fossil reptile was hidden in a museum to escape the devastation of war, and 80 years later it turned out that soft tissues remained on the body of the ancient animal – skin with surviving cell nuclei and scales. The new data supplements the idea of the appearance of plesiosaurs that lived more than 180 million years ago.