TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – The New Jersey State Museum says it has received a 215 million year old fossil discovered on state land.

Fossil hunters James Leonard of Lewisberry, Pa., and Steven and Trini Stelz of Flemington donated a reptilian specimen found in 1979 at a fossil dig in a Bergen County quarry.

Princeton University paleontologist Dr. Donald Baird then identified the fossil as the complete skeleton of a primitive reptile called tanytrachelos ahynis from the Late Triassic Period.

The fossil had been on display at the Lamont-Doherty Geologic Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., until recently when Leonard and the Stelzes decided it should be on display in New Jersey.

A state museum official says paleontologists will study the rare specimen over the next few months.

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AP-ES-03-29-10 1119EDT