The new #plesiosaur from Celina, TX has a complete neck and at least parts of a skull! The @PerotMuseum prep team found the neck curled back onto itself and connected to a mass of skull-ish looking bones. So neat seeing it all appear bit by bit. #FossilFriday pic.twitter.com/19oifJxudb
— Ron Tykoski (@Paleo_Tykoski) May 2, 2025
A year after the first Jurassic-era bone fragments were found in the Malone Mountains of West Texas, a new ancient discovery popped up in Celina.
Steve Schliesing, a 61-year old mechanical engineer, has been searching for fossils for the last five years and struck prehistoric gold in the dirt of a housing development construction site in November, north of Plano. The Flower Mound resident discovered the fossilized remains of a plesiosaur.
The marine reptile would have swum a shallow sea covering what is now northeastern Mexico and far western Texas about 150 million years ago. They were once land-dwellers before adapting to the water and had flat bodies, four flippers, a small tail and sharp teeth for hunting its underwater prey. Schliesing’s discovery was on the smaller side, around 12-feet, he told the Dallas Morning News …