Where are plesiosaur fossils found?
Where are plesiosaur fossils found?
Plesiosaur, any of a group of long-necked marine reptiles found as fossils from the Late Triassic Period into the Late Cretaceous Period (215 million to 80 million years ago). Plesiosaurs had a wide distribution in European seas and around the Pacific Ocean, including Australia, North America, and Asia.
Do you think that the materials that made up the bodies of plesiosaurs are still on earth today?
Do you think that the materials that made up the bodies of plesiosaurs are still on Earth today? Yes, because they would have been crushed into the ground and eventually made it a layer of earth. It is probably is a layer deep under the Earth’s surface.
What does a plesiosaur fossil look like?
Plesiosaurs generally look a little like large manatees with giraffe necks and snake-like heads, though they have four flippers rather than a manatee’s three. (Find out about a plesiosaur fossil found with a baby preserved in its body.) “They were some kind of weird plesiosaurs that nobody knew.”
Did plesiosaurs come on land?
“Scientists have long known that the bodies of plesiosaurs were not well suited to climbing onto land and laying eggs in a nest [like dinosaurs]. So the lack of evidence of live birth in plesiosaurs has been puzzling,” O’Keefe, a plesiosaur expert at West Virginia’s Marshall University, said in a statement.
Is there a dinosaur that swims?
New bones suggest Spinosaurus is the only known aquatic dinosaur.
What kind of animal was a plesiosaur?
Plesiosaurs were carnivorous aquatic (mostly marine) reptiles. The common name ‘plesiosaur’ is applied both to the ‘true’ plesiosaurs (Suborder Plesiosauroidea) which includes both long-necked (elasmosaurs) and short-necked (polycotylid) forms and to the larger taxonomic rank of Plesiosauria, which includes the pliosaurs.
What kind of plesiosaur was found in Kansas?
Following Webb’s discovery, two other species of short necked plesiosaurs were found in Kansas. One, Trinacromerum, was discovered in the underlying “Fort Benton” Formation, and was much older than Polycotylus. The other, Dolichorhynchops, was also found in the Smoky Hill Chalk and lived at the same time as Polycotylus.
Where are plesiosaurs found in the Natural History Museum?
Found in the Lower Lias strata, Street, in the county of Somerset, England. The original is in the Natural History Museum, London, England. You may be looking for Plesiosauria. Plesiosaurs were carnivorous aquatic (mostly marine) reptiles.
How big is the head of a plesiosaur?
According to traditional classifications, all plesiosaurs have a small head and long neck but, in recent classifications, one short-necked and large-headed Cretaceous group, the Polycotylidae, are included under the Plesiosauroidea, rather than under the traditional Pliosauroidea.