The State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart has a globally important collection of marine reptiles with numerous specimens from the time of the so-called Posidonia Shale. The outstanding feature of the ca. 183-182 million year old fossils from southwestern Germany is their extremely good, often complete preservation. The fossils are therefore not only beautiful exhibits, but also invaluable to science. Based on sixty-two fossils from the Posidonia Shale, a team from the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart led by paleontologist Dr. Michela Johnson, conducted a study on the growth rate of the marine crocodile Macrospondylus bollensis.