Category «palaeobiology»

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 …

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 …

An old debate settled – plesiosaurs gave birth to live young

An exciting new paper published this week in the journal Science (Vol. 333, p.870-873) provides the first direct evidence for live birth in plesiosaurs, and may have implications for plesiosaur behaviour (O’Keefe & Chiappe, 2011). Whether plesiosaurs laid eggs or gave birth to live young has been a topic of speculation for nearly 200 years. …

Recent plesiosaur papers – a round up

So far, 2008 has seen a healthy number of new papers on plesiosaurs and a few new taxa too. Way back in February, Druckenmiller and Russell (2008a) introduced Nichollsia borealis, a plesiosaur of uncertain affinity, based on a beautifully preserved specimen from Alberta, Canada. More recently, Druckenmiller and Russell (2008b) published a large scale cladistic …