New ‘monster’ pliosaur amongst arctic plesiosaur fossil bounty

A total of 22 plesiosaurs have been discovered during an expedition to the Arctic island of Spitzbergen by the University of Oslo, Natural History Museum. The team led by Dr. Jørn Hurum and Hans Arne Nakrem also discovered ichthyosaurs – but the majority of the fossils await excavation when the team return next year. Most of the plesiosaurs belong to long-necked plesiosauroids, such as Kimmerosaurus (pictured), but in addition a large short-necked pliosaur, dubbed the ‘Monster’ was discovered, the snout tip of which was weathered out of the rock and collected (pictured). For more details visit the links below.

This story is also covered by the BBC –http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5403570.stm

by Yahoo http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061005/sc_afp/norwaypaleontology

and of course, by the university of Oslo, http://www.nhm.uio.no/pliosaurus/index.html

Thanks to Magne Høyberget for alerting me about this plesiosaur news.