Ophthalmothule, a new plesiosaur

[Halichoeres]

A few weeks ago a new plesiosaur was described from Norway's Svalbard archipelago. The authors assign it to the Cryptoclididae, and include some nice CT scans of the head.

A reconstruction of the full skeleton:



Open access in PeerJ: https://peerj.com/articles/8652/

[Shonisaurus]

God! The immense part of his body is preserved. We need that new plesiosaurus from Collecta, Safari, Rebor or another brand of toy dinosaurs soon.

[Halichoeres]

@dinotoyforum In light of recent discussion of the CollectA Elasmosaurus, would you say that this skeletal reconstruction gives too much curvature to the dorsal vertebral series? From what I can glean from this paper, it doesn't seem like the fossil as preserved would faithfully reflect the orientation of the vertebrae in life.

[DinoToyForum]

@dinotoyforum In light of recent discussion of the CollectA Elasmosaurus, would you say that this skeletal reconstruction gives too much curvature to the dorsal vertebral series? From what I can glean from this paper, it doesn't seem like the fossil as preserved would faithfully reflect the orientation of the vertebrae in life.

Yes, far too much, I think. The specimen is dorso-ventrally compressed to the posture of the spine will be a bit of guess, but I'll ask Aubrey, she probably based it on Andrews' hump-backed Muraenosaurus reconstruction.

[Halichoeres]

Thank you!

[Faelrin]

Wow that's nearly complete. What a great find. Glad to see the paper is open access too. Obligatory adding this to my wishlist too.