When German bombs rained down on London during World War II, it was thought that the first complete Ichthyosaur skeleton would never be found.
There was no record of the plaster casts being made.
The finds were described as "historically important" by the researchers.
They said that the specimen was the first skeleton of an extinct marine reptile and the most complete of its kind.
The "cast of a cast" was donated to the institution in 1930 after one of the casts was found at the museum.
Anning and her family went fossil-hunting in the early 19th century, and the specimen they found is an Ichosaurusthy specimen.
The Natural History Museum in Berlin says that it is a "plaster cast of an Ichthyosaur skeleton from an unknown location"
The journal Royal Society Open Science published on Wednesday stated that the latter was in excellent condition and likely to be a later cast.
The Royal College of Surgeons bought the lost ichthyosaur skeleton for $100 after it failed to sell at an auction in 1820.
It's the equivalent of almost $8,000 today.
The cast in the best condition is in the Berlin museum since the original was destroyed during World War II.
Ichthyosaurus was a distant relative of lizards and snakes.
They lived between 251 million and 65.5 million years ago, and were common in the early part of the 20th century.
There are well-preserved fossils in Germany and England.
There were four flippers, large eyes, a pointed snout, and rows of sharp teeth.
They wouldn't have been able to survive on land because they were air-Breathers.
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Agence France- Presse.
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