What did the plesiosaur eat?

What did a Cetiosaurus eat?

A Cetiosaurus was an herbivore and only ate plants. The Rutland Dinosaur would use its long neck to gather food from a large area and to reach up to graze from tree tops. The long tail would be used to balance its weight. The absence of sharp claws and jagged teeth are further clues that this dinosaur was a plant eater.

What is a pliosaur?

Plesiosaurs (Greek for “almost lizards”) were large, long-necked, four-flippered marine reptiles that paddled their way through the oceans, lakes, rivers, and swamps of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Confusingly, the name “plesiosaur” also encompasses the pliosaurs…

Was Plesiosaurus a carnivore?

Image Copyright to D. Bogdanov. Plesiosaurus was a carnivore, more specifically a piscivore that ate primarily small marine life such as fish, and mollusks also. A diet practiced by early amphibians, piscivory involved evolution to insectivory and then ultimately herbivory, added by reptilian species.

What did pliosaurs eat?

Whereas most plesiosaurs subsisted on fish, pliosaurs (like their underwater neighbors, the prehistoric sharks) probably fed on anything and everything that ventured their way, ranging from fish to squids to other marine reptiles.

What did the Rutland Dinosaur eat?

The Rutland Dinosaur would use its long neck to gather food from a large area and to reach up to graze from tree tops. The long tail would be used to balance its weight. The absence of sharp claws and jagged teeth are further clues that this dinosaur was a plant eater.

What kind of animal is a Cetiosaurus?

Cetiosaurus belonged to a group of dinosaurs called sauropods. These were characterised by their long tail, long neck, small head, large body and four strong pillar-like legs. What did a Cetiosaurus eat?

What is Cetiosauriscus?

The fossil later known as Cetiosauriscus was originally ascribed to the genus Cetiosaurus —one of the first sauropods to be named, in 1842 by palaeontologist Richard Owen, and one with a complicated history due to many unfounded referrals of species and specimens, involving almost all English sauropod specimens.

What type of animal is a pliosaur?

pliosaur, a group of large carnivorous marine reptiles characterized by massive heads, short necks, and streamlined tear-shaped bodies. Pliosaurs have been found as fossils from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods (about 200 million to 65.5 million years ago).

What is the difference between a pliosaur and a long necked plesiosaur?

As a general rule, the pliosaurs of the late Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were bigger, stronger, and just plain meaner than their long-necked plesiosaur cousins.

Where can pliosaur fossils be found?

Pliosaur fossils have been found in Antarctica and other parts of the world. Pliosaurs (Greek for: “sailing lizards” or “fin lizards”) were a suborder of marine reptiles that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, from about 200 million years ago ( Thalassiodracon) to about 85 million years ago, when they died out.

What is the classification of a plesiosaur?

They are classified in the order Plesiosauria, along with their long-necked relatives, the plesiosaurs. Pliosaurs possessed powerful jaws and large teeth, and they used four large fins to swim through Mesozoic seas.

What happened to plesiosaurs during the Jurassic period?

They became especially common during the Jurassic Period, thriving until their disappearance due to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago. They had a worldwide oceanic distribution. Plesiosaurs were among the first fossil reptiles discovered.

How many plesiosaur species have been described?

Since then, more than a hundred valid species have been described. In the early twenty-first century, the number of discoveries has increased, leading to an improved understanding of their anatomy, relationships and way of life. Plesiosaurs had a broad flat body and a short tail.

Where did plesiosaurs live?

plesiosaur, (clade Plesiosauria), any of a group of long-necked marine reptiles found as fossils from the late Triassic Period into the late Cretaceous Period (215 million to 66 million years ago). Plesiosaurs had a wide distribution in European seas and around the Pacific Ocean, including Australia, North America, and Asia.

Was Plesiosaurus a piscivore?

Quick Plesiosaurus Facts Lived from the Early to the Middle Jurassic Period Lived in oceans all over the world Was a marine reptile May have laid eggs in the sand like sea turtles Was twice as long as a horse Weighed twice as much as a pig They breathed air Was a Piscivore and/or Carnivore

Did pliosaurs really go extinct 65 million years ago?

Even before a living coelacanth –a genus of prehistoric fish that was believed to have died off tens of millions of years ago–was found in 1938 off the coast of Africa, people known as cryptozoologists have speculated about whether all the plesiosaurs and pliosaurs really went extinct 65 million years ago along with their dinosaur cousins. Whe…

What is the difference between a pliosaur and a plesiosaur?

However, not all pliosaurs were equally big: for example, the late Cretaceous Dolichorhynchops was a 17-foot-long runt (and may have subsisted on soft-bellied squids rather than more robust prehistoric fish). Just as plesiosaurs and pliosaurs (with some notable exceptions) differed in their basic body plans, they also differed in their behavior.

Were plesiosaurs the fastest marine reptiles of the Mesozoic era?

Despite their sleek bodies, plesiosaurs were far from the fastest marine reptiles of the Mesozoic Era (in a head-to-head match, most plesiosaurs would likely have been outflippered by most ichthyosaurs, the slightly earlier “fish lizards” that evolved hydrodynamic, tuna-like shapes).

What did the largest meat-eating dinosaur eat?

To judge by its long, narrow, crocodile-like snout and its presumed ability to swim, the largest meat-eating dinosaur that ever lived, Spinosaurus, preferred seafood, as did its close relatives Suchomimus and Baryonyx. Fish, of course, were also a favorite food source for pterosaurs and marine reptiles–which,…

How big was the ichthyosaur skeleton found in Rutland?

The 33ft (10m) long ichthyosaur skeleton, which is about 180 million years old, was found at Rutland Water Nature Reserve. Similar in shape to dolphins, the reptiles – known as sea dragons – varied in size from 3 – 82ft (1 – 25m).

What are dinosaurs?

What are dinosaurs? Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles that were the dominant terrestrial life form on Earth during the Mesozoic Era, about 245 million years ago. Dinosaurs went into decline near the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago.

Is Cetiosaurus a wastebasket?

The genus thus functioned as a typical ” wastebasket taxon “. Fossilized remains once assigned to Cetiosaurus have mainly been found in England but also in France, Switzerland and Morocco.

What is Cetiosaurus oxoniensis?

Cetiosaurus oxoniensis was a “primitive”, quadrupedal, long-necked, small-headed herbivore. It had a shorter tail and neck than most sauropods. The forelimbs on the other hand, were relatively long. C. oxoniensis is estimated to have been about 16 metres (52 ft) long and to have weighed roughly 11 tonnes (12 short tons).

Is Cetiosaurus the first sauropod?

Cetiosaurus is, with the exception of the tooth genus Cardiodon, the first sauropod to be discovered and named as well as being the best known sauropod from England. Numerous species have been assigned to Cetiosaurus over the years belonging to several different groups of sauropod dinosaurs.