I recently read and reviewed Mike Everhart’s new book for the online Journal Palaeontologica Electronica, I reproduce it here: Sea Monsters – Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep, is the official companion to the recently released IMAX movie of the same name. As Everhart explains in the preface to this book (and in the final chapter), both the movie and this...
Another giant pliosauroid plesiosaur fossil from Arctic Svalbard Islands appears to represent a new species. The specimen was discovered and initial excavations took place in Summer 2007. The treasure trove of marine reptile fossils were first discovered in 2006 by a team from the University of Oslo, Natural History Museum, led by Dr. Jørn Hurum and Hans Arne Nakrem; they...
A plesiosaur bone has been discovered in Ireland, reported the BBC in October. The single bone represents a large plesiosaur vertebral centrum, but cannot be identified in any detail. It was discovered by Park Ranger Paul Bennet in the Colin River in Colin Glen, on the West edge of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Marine reptile fossils are exceedingly rare in Ireland...
The newest film offering from National Geographic opened to 78 IMAX theaters across the United States, the largest ever opening for an IMAX movie. ‘Sea Monsters’ is set in the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea, and follows the journey of a growing Dolichorhynchops. The official website is now complete and up and running....
A four-metre-long plesiosaur skeleton has been discovered by in Northern Germany by an amateur palaeontologist. 19-year-old fossil collector Sönke Simonsen discovered the specimen in June whilst looking for fossils with his dad in a quarry at Tongrube in Kreis Hoxter, near Bielefeld. “The first thing I discovered was a caudal-vertebra” said Simonsen, “but then I realised that to the left...
A giant plesiosaur has been discovered and excavated from the Late Cretaceous Bearpaw Shale of Drumheller, southern Alberta, Canada. According to the press release the fossil remains were found in an ammolite mine by staff from Korite International (‘Ammolite’ is a gemstone, not to be confused with the prehistoric cephalopod ‘ammonite’). The team from the Royal Tyrell Museum excavating the...
A special exhibition entitled “Collecting Oklahoma” opened in the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, on the 16th of June 2007. The exhibition features an original painting of an Elasmosaurus by artist Debby Cotter Kaspari. The exhibit was curated by Rick Lupia, the project coordinator was Deborah Kay, and Tom Luczycki was the exhibits director. I discussed in a...
On Monday the 18th of June, Hive Studios announced the first installment of their animation library featuring some amazing animations of prehistoric animals, including some plesiosaurs. The plesiosaurs are Cryptoclidus, but it’s also worth checking out the Allosaurus and Othnelia animations too. The animations feature in the ABC Science documentary “CRUDE”, all about crude oil. The documentary, including the plesiosaur...
The most recent issue of the ‘Palaeontology’ (Vol 49, Part 3) features an article by Franziska Grossman on the plesiosauroids from the Jurassic Posidonia Shale in Germany. Grossman describes the skulls of two genera, Seeleyosaurus guilelmiimperatoris (a tongue-twister of a taxon! – formerly Plesiosaurus guilelmiimperatoris) and introduces a new genus Hydrorion brachypterygius (formerly Plesiosaurus brachypterygius). Interestingly, Grossman analyses the holotype...
Artist Debby Cotter Kaspari has produced an Elasmosaurus painting as part of a special exhibition in the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History entitled “Collecting Oklahoma”, scheduled to open on the 16th of June 2007. The exhibit will present a selection of rare and unique specimens collected around Oklahoma by the museum over the last decade. The painting was...
The second paper in the two-part report on by Albright et al. on plesiosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous Tropic Shale of southern Utah (Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, Volume 27(1) p. 41-58), introduces two new genera and species of polycotylid plesiosaur and contributes to the systematics of polycotylid plesiosaurs. The first new genus and species, Palmula quadratus possesses a unique combination...
The most recent Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology (Volume 27(1)) contains three new plesiosaur papers. A short communication by Ben Kear (Kear 2007, p. 241-246) clarifies the taxonomy of what has become a very confusing taxon – Eromangasaurus (Kear 2005). The confusion originated because two separate researchers (Ben Kear and Sven Sachs) simultaneously published separate descriptions and names for the...
Elasmosaurid plesiosaurs are notorious for ‘losing their heads’. In fossil plesiosaur skeletons the skull is frequently missing, unfortunate because this is such a vital part of the anatomy for understanding the relationships and biology of the animal. This fact makes the discovery of a new elasmosaurid skull, the first ever from the state of Montana, all the more significant. The...
The long neck of the plesiosaur is a mysterious adaptation for which many hypotheses have been proposed. The most recent suggestion comes from Dr Leslie Noè of the University of Cambridge . After examining the neck vertebrae of the long-necked plesiosaur Muraenosaurus, whose name translates as ‘Moray eel lizard’, Dr Noè concluded that the natural position of the neck was...
A total of 22 plesiosaurs have been discovered during an expedition to the Arctic island of Spitzbergen by the University of Oslo, Natural History Museum. The team led by Dr. Jørn Hurum and Hans Arne Nakrem also discovered ichthyosaurs – but the majority of the fossils await excavation when the team return next year. Most of the plesiosaurs belong to...