As Chris Clarke told me, "They were big ducks!" Two newly discovered elasmosaurid plesiosaur specimens from the Cretaceous contained a surprise that told us a little more about their diet.
Continue reading "Plesiosaur poop!" (on Pharyngula)
Plesiosaur poop!
8 Comments
Bayesian Bouffant, FCD · 18 October 2005
What lousy design! If their nostrils were on their backs instead of on their face, they could keep their heads under water and dig for clams all day without coming up for air.
Prof. Steve Steve · 18 October 2005
Ah, the coprolitic remains of a mighty plesiosaur!
I myself was just in the jaws of a Kronosaurus queenslandicus—one of the plesiosaurs, but escaped before being consumed and ultimately turned into fossilized dung. I would like to be immortalized in this way, but not yet.
See the page Kronosaurus queenslandicus: Ancient Monarch of the Seas to see a photo of an entire fossil. Stitch it together with this image of the same fossil with me to get a feeling for its enormous size!
Dan Phelps · 18 October 2005
Interesting. Sometimes gastroliths are made out of chert containing fossils. I have a dinosaur (not plesiosaur)gastrolith that contains a crinoid stem. How would the YE creationists explain this?
The crinoid would have to be buried in a marine environment; the sediment would have to lithify and turn to chert (SiO2); then be weathered and a chert fragment swallowed by a dinosaur; and then the hard chert had to be rounded and polished in the dinosaur's digestive system. Then the dinosaur would have to die and its gastroliths be redeposited in sandstone. ALL IN ONE FRICK'N YEAR!!!
Ben · 18 October 2005
This news is craptacular.
"Archbishop""Dr" Hi'yall ( all round ruler of everything, most benefcient lord of life and death) · 18 October 2005
Shame, I always imagined that Plesiosaur's ripped apart other huge sea monsters to stay alive ( even though I knew rationally there was little chance this was true.) This new evidence sort of takes a bit of the romance away.
Henry J · 18 October 2005
Re "The crinoid would have to be buried in a marine environment; the sediment would have to lithify and turn to chert (SiO2); then be weathered and a chert fragment swallowed by a dinosaur; [...]"
So what we have there is a fossil of a dinosaur that had while alive swallowed an even older fossil? :lol:
Henry
Connie Lingus · 19 October 2005
"What lousy design! If their nostrils were on their backs instead of on their face, they could keep their heads under water and dig for clams all day without coming up for air."
I once had a a girlfriend that would agree totally with this.
sir_toejam · 19 October 2005
even the handle you used fits that response.
lol.