Written by Richard Forrest A few reasons why the Loch Ness Monster can't be a plesiosaur Loch Ness can't support a population of large carnivorous animals Loch Ness is a cold, deep lake, and has steeply sloping shores. This means that most of the water is cold and dark, and does not…
I need to catch up on several more years of new plesiosaur models. The notable new company on the block is PNSO, the Peking Nature-Science Organisation, although having pushed out an impressively prolific catalogue of prehistoric animal models, to date they have produced only one commercially available plesiosaur figure, a Kronosaurus in…
Today is the official publication day for my new children's picture book The Tyrannosaur's Feathers. As previously announced on this blog, the book was co-written with Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Stieven Van der Poorten, and published by UCLan Publishing. We are all so happy with how it has turned out. The front cover of…
Allow me to deviate from plesiosaurs for a moment to focus on a different kind of Mesozoic vertebrate – dinosaurs! I'm delighted to announce that my second children's book, The Tyrannosaur's Feathers, will be published later this year, and I'm also excited to reveal the front cover. It's a 'kind-of' sequel to The…
Newman and Tarlo (1967) In 1967, Barney Newman and Lambert Beverley Tarlo authored a three-page short article in the popular magazine 'Animals', a short-lived periodical published weekly by Purnell from 1963 to, at least, 1967... I'm not sure when it eventually fizzled out. Their article entitled "A Giant Marine Reptile From Bedfordshire" provides an…
A month has passed since my new book, The Plesiosaur's Neck, was published. So, it's a good time to reflect on some of the events and reactions that followed its release. Firstly, it was exciting to see the book in the wild, particularly at the Heffers branch of Blackell's in Oxford, where…
Pick a random piece of plesiosaur paleoart and chances are the animal will be depicted with an arched back. A hump, almost. But did plesiosaurs really have the hump? This arched posture can be traced back in the scientific literature to Andrews' 1910-13 seminal works on the marine reptiles from the Oxford…
A review of the evidence for living plesiosaurs One of the topics I'm most frequently asked about as a plesiosaur palaeontologist is my opinion on the Loch Ness Monster and other monsters purported to be present day plesiosaurs. In this review I'll cast a critical eye over the evidence for living plesiosaurs.…
There are many different plesiosaur toys, replicas, statues, and other commercially available models. Here is my collection. It isn't quite exhaustive, but it's getting there. Many of these are now out of production and have become rare collector items. Others are in production and available to buy today, and new figures are…
The Crystal Palace plesiosaurs The first ever life-size models of prehistoric animals were produced in the early 1850s by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. They were revealed to the world at Crystal Palace in London, 1854, and today they grace the grounds at Sydenham Hill, where they are classified as Grade 1 listed buildings.…
The topic of plesiosaurs sometimes extends outside of the realm of science and into popular culture. Plesiosaurs first entered the public consciousness as early as the 1850s when life-size models of prehistoric animals were erected at Crystal Palace. Plesiosaurs have had guest appearances in movies, TV shows – more than you might…
It is hard to believe that the last time I wrote about plesiosaur toys here was in March 2011, over six years ago (http://plesiosauria.com/news/index.php/new-plesiosaur-replicas-for-2011/). Since then, many more new plesiosaur figures have hit the shelves, well, online stores - you'll do well to find any of these toys in actual brick and…
It was once common knowledge that elasmosaurid plesiosaurs were bendy-necked beasts that swanned about near the surface, striking snake-like at slippery prey. It is now common knowledge that their necks were relatively rigid rod-like structures, the function of which remains something of a mystery. The truth, with regard to flexibility at least,…
The following label was found by Richard Forrest "in the collections of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History with J.28587, the holotype of Plesiosaurus macromus (Owen 1840)" He added the annotated image to the front page of his 'The Plesiosaur Site' around May 2014. I'm reposting it here under Richard's name…
"I'll tell you a story -- and some of it's true -- that explores and explains what the Bone-Hunters do." You're probably already familiar with the Bone Wars, or the Great Dinosaur Rush, but you won't have seen this real-life rivalry between two prolific 19th century palaeontologists portrayed quite like this before.…