Plesiosaur
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The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period, possibly in the Rha
Paleo Hall at HMNS plesiosaur
Peloneustes philarchus Tubingen
First published plesiosaur skeleton, 1719 (specimen NHMUK PV R.1330)
As this illustration shows, Conybeare by 1824 had gained a basically correct understanding of plesiosaur anatomy.
Elasmosaurus
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Elasmosaurus is a genus of plesiosaur that lived in North America during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, at about 80.6 to 77 million years ago. The first specimen was discovered in
Officers at Fort Wallace, Kansas, in 1867. Theophilus H. Turner, who the same year discovered Elasmosaurus in the area, is second from left.
Back vertebrae of the holotype, 1869
Edward Drinker Cope's original 1869 reconstruction of Elasmosaurus, above, with the head on the wrong end and no hind-limbs, and holotype elements of E. platyurus (1–9) and E. orientalis (10), below
Cope's corrected 1870 reconstruction of Elasmosaurus, above