Two sisters and their friend who hunt for fossils as a hobby have discovered one of the world's rarest finds.
Cassandra and Cynthia Prince and their friend Sally found the fossilised skeleton of a sea creature that lived over 100 million years ago.
In remote outback Queensland on a cattle station, they unearthed a glimpse of prehistoric life.
"This guy was all covered in dirt, so we really thought we had a rock," Cassandra said.
Instead, it was the head of a long-necked plesiosaur, a prehistoric sea creature that lived alongside dinosaurs 100 million years ago.
"We were quietly excited. I think she [Cassandra] slept with it for the first three nights," Cynthia said.
The sea creature, nicknamed "Little Prince", is believed to be a juvenile that is up to six metres in length.
The prehistoric sea creature once swam in an inland sea in central Australia.
The discovery is extra special as it's the first time in the world one has been found with its head attached to its body.
"It's usually just the neck down and bits and pieces of that," Queensland Museum paleontologist Espen Knutsen said. "This is why this is significant because we not only have the head itself, we have the body that goes with it."
It will be years before the full fossil is shown to the public, with it first undergoing a CT scan that could solve prehistoric mysteries
"We can tell much more about the anatomy and physiology and evolutionary relationship of these guys," Knutsen said.
The "rock sisters" regularly dig on their property and text photos of their finds to the museum.
Sally, Cynthia and Cassandra have a secret to their success.
"There are particular trees and bushes we go off," Cassandra said.
The aspiring paleontologists are on a quest to uncover what life existed before we did.
