Elasmosaurus
Elasmosaurus platyurus
Elasmosaurus is one of the most markedly long-necked plesiosaurs and illustrates how fossil reconstructions can be corrected.
Image: MCDinosaurhunter · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Loading map textures; the previous reconstruction stays visible...
Sites on today's globe · 1 marker
Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Elasmosaurus platyurus
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (Campanian)
- Lived
- 80–75 Ma (80 million years ago)
- Diet
- Piscivore
- Habitat
- Open sea
- Length (estimate)
- 10 m
Description
Elasmosaurus was a plesiosaur with a very long neck, a small head and four powerful paddles. Its neck contained dozens of vertebrae, but probably could not form the large coils shown in older illustrations. It probably caught fish and cephalopods in the water column. The first skeleton was initially mounted with the head at the wrong end, a well-known error in the history of palaeontology.
Habitat
Inland seas and open coastal waters of western North America.
Fossil sites
Niobrara Formation, Kansas
Niobrara Formation
Cultural profile: United States →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Elasmosaurus