Category «Anatomy»

The Plesiosaur’s Neck book – out now!

The Plesiosaur’s Neck is here! Today is the official release date for my new children’s book about Poppy Plesiosaur’s unusually long neck. My advance author copies have arrived and it looks absolutely stunning, co-author Jonathan Emmett and I are both delighted with it. The colours pop and the cover gleams! The team at UCLan Publishing …

The Plesiosaur’s Neck book – coming soon!

The Plesiosaur's Neck book front cover

It is with much excitement that I am able to reveal the front cover of The Plesiosaur’s Neck, a new children’s picture book written by Jonathan Emmett and myself. The book, illustrated by the excellent Adam Larkum, is being published by UCLan Publishing. Now available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk, Hive.co.uk, Waterstones.com “There’s one thing about …

Did plesiosaurs have the hump?

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 Clay. He reconstructed …

Anatomy

All plesiosaurs have four flippers, a short body and a short tail. The skeleton below belongs to Meyerasaurus victor, one of the most complete plesiosaur specimens ever found. It shows the ventral surface (underside) of the animal (redrawn from Fraas, 1910). Cranium and jaws There is considerable variation in plesiosaur skull anatomy. N.B. This section …

Why did elasmosaurids have such a long neck?

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, is probably somewhere …

The Planet Dinosaur plesiosaurs (part 2)

So, time for more Planet Dinosaur plesiosaurs… In part 1 of we familiarised ourselves with the taxonomy and appearance of the plesiosaurian stars of the fourth episode of the BBC’s Planet Dinosaur, ‘Fight for Life’. Now we’re all set up to pick apart, with ruthless abandon, the animators’ painstaking efforts to bring these animals to …