Ancient sea reptile gave birth, didn't lay eggs

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_PREGNANT_PLESIOSAUR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-08-11-14-37-46

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The remains of a giant sea creature are providing the first proof that these prehistoric reptiles gave birth to their young rather than laying eggs.

Plesiosaurs, which lived at the time of dinosaurs, were large carnivorous sea animals with broad bodies and two pairs of flippers. Researchers have long questioned whether they would have been able to crawl onto land and lay eggs like other reptiles or gave birth in the water like whales.

"This is the first evidence of live birth in plesiosaurs - an exciting find," said geology professor Judy A. Massare of the State University of New York, Brockport, who was not part of the research team.

The newly unveiled fossil was originally discovered in 1987 in Logan County in Kansas. Encased in rock, it had been stored in the basement of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County until resources were available to separate the bones for display at the museum.

I rarely get a chance to use the word "viviparous"; thank you...

A number of reptiles and fish reproduce that way. In a sense, though, even humans are ovo-viviparous, as are most animals, since they all start with an ovum, but placental mammals have evolved in a somewhat different direction.