Nakonanectes is a small elasmosaurid plesiosaur from the Bearpaw Shale of Montana, USA. It is known from a single moderately complete specimen including a particularly fine skull. It has a relatively short neck for an elasmosaur consisting of 'only' 39-42 neck vertebrae. However, 16–19 of the neck vertebrae were lost in a…
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…
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…
Sachs (2004) regarded 'Woolungasaurus' as a junior synonym of Styxosaurus and assigned the type species ('W. glendowerensis') to that genus under the new combination 'Styxosaurus glendoweresnis'. However, this placement was unsupported by unambiguous apomorphic characters (Kear 2007). Since 'Woolungasaurus' has no unique diagnostic characters, Kear (2005) reassigned all specimens of it to…
The holotype specimen (KUVP 1301) of Styxosaurus is an articulated skull and anterior portion of the neck. It was found in the Niobrara Chalk near Hell Creek, Logan County, Western Kansas in 1890. It was described later that year as a new species Cimoliosaurus snowii by Williston (1890a) (and Williston 1890b), who subsequently…
The type skeleton of 'Ogmodirus' was collected in 1909 by C. Boyce from the upper Greenhorn Limestone Formation (Lower Turonian, Upper Cretaceous) of Cloud County (near Aurora), Kansas (Storrs 1999, Schumacher and Everhart 2005). The specimen, KUVP 441, is a partial skeleton consisting of partial vertebral column (51 cervical vertebrae, 18 caudal vertebrae),…
Thalassomedon (AMNH 29878), American Museum of Natural History, New York The Elasmosauridae is a group of very long-necked plesiosaurs. They form a major component of Late Cretaceous plesiosaur assemblages. The definition of Elasmosauridae has changed in recent years as our understanding of plesiosaur evolution has improved. Older definitions included many Jurassic long-necked…