The amazing “Jurassic Coast” in Dorset/Devon has thrown up another fantastic fossil – the skull of a massive pliosaur, which would have been perhaps 15m long. To be honest, the fossil isn’t much to look at (a load of rock), but it’s a pretty impressive find. Pliosaurs, in case you don’t know, were short-necked marine reptiles. Together with their relatives the plesioaurs (with long-necks, which look like the Loch Ness Monster) they ruled in the seas up until shortly before the end of the Cretaceous. There’s a great fossil plesiosaur and a model in the Manchester Museum. And no, they were not dinosaurs, which neither flew nor swam.
BBC page, includes video (probably not visible outside UK)
Adam Smith’s fantastic Plesiosaur site
Adam Smith podcast on is Nessie a Plesiosaur and other (more serious) things:
