Two-headed marine reptile found

A fossil of a two-headed marine reptile called a Hyphalosaurus has been found in China. It looks like a mini-plesiosaur with two heads. It was discovered in North-eastern China by Eric Buffetaut and a team from France and China. It lived in the early Cretaceous about 120 million years ago. It is the first fossil ever found that shows two long necks and two heads. This is called axial bifurcation and is found in modern reptiles. Researchers were surprised to find this in a fossil. The Hyphalosaurus was three inches long and a hatchling. Adults would be about a metre long (three feet).

Hyphalosaurus is part of a larger group of aquatic and semi-aquatic reptiles called choristoderes and was not a true dinosaur.

The fossil was found in the Yixian formation that is famous for giving us many fossils of feathered dinosaurs, like Caudipteryx and birds.

We think it is really cool and maybe it started stories of two-headed dragons.