KIROV, August 16. /TASS/. Paleontologists in the Kirov Region, some 900 kilometers to the northeast of Moscow, have discovered fossils of two Pareiasaurs, reptiles who roamed the Earth some 260 million years ago, a local museum official said on Thursday.
The discovery was made at the Kotelnich fossil site on the right bank of the Vyatka river.
"The second skeleton is not as well preserved as the first one found during this season," said Leonid Kavardakov of the Vyatka paleontological museum. "Both discoveries were brought to the museum’s laboratory."
The first two skeletons of the ancient reptiles were unearthed at the fossil site in 1933 by a local hydrogeologist who was drilling for water wells. Excavation work has never stopped on the Vyatka river since the 1990s. The work is carried out here from May to October when the water level declines.
Therocephalians, cynodonts, gorgonopsians, anomodonts, dicynodonts, a Mastodonsaurus, Tarbosaurus and Ankylosaurus - all of these fossils were discovered at the Kotelnich site.
Pareiasaurs were large and awkward herbivores who measured to 2.5 meters in length, who most likely lived in damp lowlands. Sometimes they got trapped in mud and slowly died.
The Vyatka paleontological museum founded in 1994 houses some 3,000 items. The team of local paleontologists discovered over 20 new species of fossil animals in 25 years.