There has been a spate of reports in the media recently about an important find of marine reptiles from the Svalbard, in the Norwegian arctic. The largest island in this archipelago is Spitzbergen. Fragmentary remains from this area have been reported for almost a century (Wiman 1914). However, these have been only…
South Dublin City, 6.30am, Thursday 10th of August 2006. I clamber into the passenger seat of a 4x4 - destination London. My travelling companions are Colin in the driver's seat, and two suspiciously large wooden crates. A monster lurks inside: the skull of the Dublin plesiosaur. The plan is to transport the…
There is an unofficial 'Premier League' in vertebrate palaeontology which consits of the animals which attract a lot of public attention. Its members include T. rex, Seismosaurus, Argentinosaurus, Giganotosaurus and so on - the biggest and fiercest extinct animals. When the BBC broadcast 'Walking with Dinosaurs' they moved Liopleurodon ferox firmly into…
I finally found the time to visit the James Mitchel Museum at the University of Galway, Ireland. The main plesiosaur in the museum is on display, mounted high on the wall at the far end of the museum (figured below). The fossil is from Lyme Regis and is identified as Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus.…
The substantially complete skeleton of a plesiosaur was found by an amateur collector, Nigel Armstrong, in 2001. He recognised the importance of the find and alerted the local museums who organised a scientific excavation led by Will Watts, Dinosaur Coast Officer and Phil Manning of the Yorkshire Museum. The specimen was found…
The discovery of a huge and substantially complete pliosaur in Mexico hit the press on the 28th December 2002. I've heard from Marie-Celine Buchy, and I can put to rest some of the more obvious exagerations and mistakes made by the media. The monster comes from the La Casita Fm (Kimmeridgian), a…