Massive Plesiosaur discovered in a Polish Cornfield LiveScience article

[Megalodoodle]

https://www.livescience.com/amp/ancient-sea-monster-pliosaur-fossils.html

 

What are your thoughts?

[Ludwigia]

This discovery is not at all surprising, since an arm of the Tethys covered most of what is now Poland at the time this creature lived. It's however good to finally have found some evidence for Poland as well, since finds of this giant are not all that common.

[Shamalama]

I'm showing my ignorance here, but what is the difference between Pliosaurs and Mosasaurs?  They looks very similar to me.  I'll be over here in the Paleozoic lobby waiting for an answer.

[grandpa]

A reasonable question.  They look a lot alike, but the two have quite different lineages and descendants.  Here are some interesting sites for more detail.

 

https://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_mosasaur_and_pliosaur

 

http://www.quantum-immortal.net/other/lecture5.pdf

 

[Shamalama]

18 hours ago, grandpa said:

A reasonable question.  They look a lot alike, but the two have quite different lineages and descendants.  Here are some interesting sites for more detail.

 

https://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_mosasaur_and_pliosaur

 

http://www.quantum-immortal.net/other/lecture5.pdf

 

 

 

Thank you @grandpa  I see now that Pliosaurs had longer necks and shorter tails and Mosasaurs were vice versa. The fin difference is interesting as well. Great example of convergent evolution.

[RuMert]

Basically Mosasaurs are water lizards from lizard family, they have a short neck, long tail, robust teeth and ball-and-socket verts. They lived in Cretasceous.

Pliosaurs are unique reptiles close to plesiosaurs (basically a type of the latter and sometimes undistinguishable), they have short or long necks, short tail, curved teeth and dual concave verts. They lived up to Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event 90 mya (before mosasaurs). They and plesiosaurs used both pairs of flippers equally (unique for water reptiles/mammals whose hind legs are prone to disappearance). Some of them reached giant proportions and were apex predators.

 

[Megalodoodle]

The size is what intrigued me. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s close to the size of Predator X...

[gieserguy]

33 minutes ago, T. nepaeolicus said:

The size is what intrigued me. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s close to the size of Predator X...

Predator X is also a Pliosaur! It’s actually mentioned in the article under its Latin name, Pliosaurus funkei!