According to reports, researchers have found the fossilized remains of a prehistoric, long-necked species of marine reptile called an elasmosaur in the mountains of southern Alaska. This is the first discovery of remains of the animal in the state.

According to Patrick Druckenmiller, who is earth sciences curator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, the creature was also having paddle-like appendages and stayed in the seas approximately 75 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period. As per researchers, the elasmosaur is related to the odd group of marine reptiles called plesiosaurs.

According to Druckenmiller, in the beginning, the remains were found by Anchorage resident Curvin Metzler. He contacted the museum after finding the bones eroding out from the facade of a cliff.

Druckenmiller said that the rocks that contain the fossils at present would have been on the ocean floor approximately 70 to 75 million years ago, as a body of water was present along the southern margin of modern-day.

According to him, during that time, "Alaska looked very different". He added, "In fact, these rocks, which were being laid down as sediment below sea level, were along the southern margin of what was Alaska, then. In the last seventy-million years, they've been crunched and brought up above sea level".

Druckenmiller said that he thought that most of the elasmosaur skeleton remains attached to the mountain. He also told that they will keep on working in order to extract it over the summer of next year.