The holotype specimen (NHMUK PV R 1336) was first and last described by Owen, 1840. ‘Plesiosaurus’ macrocephalus is probably a juvenile rhomaleosaurid, and certainly doesn’t belong to the genus Plesiosaurus. However, pending revision of the taxon and referral to a different or other existing genus, it is still named ‘Plesiosaurus‘, following Owen.
Under construction
Plesiosaurus was the first plesiosaur discovered and named. For a long time Plesiosaurus was treated as waste-basket taxon. This means that many different specimens were allocated to the genus Plesiosaurus under different species names, even when they were very different. By modern standards, many of these specimens deserve a generic name of their own, or …
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. Most unstudied plesiosaurs …
The almost complete three-dimensional skeleton of a plesiosaur from the Lower Jurassic of Lyme Regis, the famous fossil-hunting spot in Dorset, England, sold at auction last December (2005) at a closing bid of £30000 (some web-sites report the figure as over £35000). The specimen was collected about 20 years ago and is estimated to be …