AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin happened upon a great fossil discovery, the first of its kind in the state, actually. Scientists found bone fragments of a Jurassic vertebrate sea creature, adding to Texas’ fossil record.

In the university’s possession are the backbone and limbs of a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that has been extinct for about 150 million years. They say it once inhabited the shallow waters that covered what is now northeastern Mexico and far western Texas.

After learning there were no Jurassic bones in Texas’ fossil record in 2015, Steve May, a research associate at UT Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences Museum of Earth History, was inspired to make a discovery of his own.

Claude Albritton’s 1938 paper on the Malone Mountains’ geology tipped off May and his team. The clue led the way for his team to uncover the fragments during two fossil hunting expeditions there.

Texas’ geological history makes it harder to find Jurassic fossils since the state’s outcrops during prehistoric times were rare. According to UT, Jurassic-aged rocks are needed to locate Jurassic-aged fossils, and most of those rocks are found at the Malone Mountains.

Before this discovery, only Jurassic-age marine invertebrates were unearthed from Texas’ outcrops. May says this recent find gives evidence as to there being more Jurassic fossils in the state.

With this revelation, it’s expected that geologists will get busy contributing to more science. It opens the door for many people wanting to uncover the mystery behind Texas’ prehistoric history.