A prehistoric "crime scene" involving a marine reptile eating one of its flying cousins before being killed by the "T-rex of the ocean" has been uncovered in outback Queensland.
The 100-million-year-old bones of an ichthyosaur, pterosaur and kronosaurus were discovered in the state's fossil-rich north-west, which was once the formidable Eromanga Sea.
University of New England associate researcher Matt White, who had a leading role in the discovery reported this week in the Gondwana Research journal, said it was one of only a handful of palaeontological finds showing an interaction between three different species.
The long-extinct marine reptile was "dolphin-like" and grew up to 3 metres in length.
Dr White said the importance of the find was unknown at the time, but three years later, Kevin Petersen, then the curator of Richmond's Kronosaurus Korner museum, began unearthing the "murder scene".
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