Loch Ness Monster 'species' gained long neck over five million years, researchers suggest

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A species associated with the Loch Ness Monster gained long necks over a 'relatively' short space of time millions of years ago, researchers say.

Some people believe Nessie is a plesiosaurs or a descendant of the ancient animal which had a small head and long neck and became extinct 65.5 million years ago.A new find of a short-necked ancestor shows that it was not long before the species added vertebrae to end up with Elasmosaurus, whose neck was five times the length of its trunk.

Researchers from the UK and China, say their lengthy necks, used for chasing fast-moving fishes, developed quickly over a five million period around 250 million years ago.The study in the journal BMC Ecology and Evolution shows that a species known as pachypleurosaur lengthened their necks mainly by adding new vertebrae.

This species had 25 vertebrae, while some Late Cretaceous plesiosaurs such as the Elasmosaurus had as many as 72. Humans and most mammals, even giraffes, have seven.The animals originated in the Early Triassic, four million years after the end-Permian mass extinction wiped out around 90 per cent of Earth's species and during a time of rapid change following the disaster.The team from the University of Bristol and China University of Geosciences in Wuhan describe a new, short-necked plesiosaur ancestor called Chusaurus xiangensis.Living in Hubei Province, China in the Early Triassic its neck had begun to lengthen was only half the length of the trunk of its body compared to 80 per cent or higher in its later relatives.Dr Qi-Ling Liu, who led the project said: "We were lucky enough to find two complete skeletons of this new beast.