I am kind of sad that this is the end of Wild Facts – Extinction. I had a ton of fun writing about the animals of the past and I am super excited to finish out the week talking about the Plesiosaur. For those paying attention to previous Wild Facts, you might be surprised that you didn’t see a Fact on the Dodo Bird this week but don’t worry as it will show up when you least expect it. Until then let’s enjoy learning about this gigantic, carnivorous, aquatic, reptile. Just writing those adjectives gets me all fired up for this post so let’s stop wasting time with my amusing banter and get into the facts.
Contrary to popular belief the Plesiosaurs are not actually dinosaurs even though they were both conquering their respective habitats at the same time. There were several different species of Plesiosaurs but the most popular are the ones with the long necks. As you can imagine from looking at the pictures, many people believe our Scottish friend the Loch Ness Monster is actually a Plesiosaur. It is easy to see why people think that but I highly doubt it since these creatures swam the oceans nearly 65 million years ago while Nessie was thought to exist only 12000 years ago.
Let’s find out a little more about this unusual animal, shall we? Plesiosaurs had a broad body with a short tail and ranged in length from 2.5 to 14 m (8 to 46 feet). Their limbs evolved into large flippers and usually had small heads with long necks. Although, some large headed, small necked Plesiosaurs were discovered as well. It is believed that despite the large flippers these sea creatures were actually slow swimmers who cruised just below the surface of the water. They would use their long necks to quickly snap up any fish that was swimming by. So what is the point of the large flippers if they didn’t use them to swim fast? Well it is believed that these flippers gave them ultimate maneuverability which helped them rotate their body quickly to catch escaping prey. I for one would not be caught dead swimming in the ocean with this top predator swimming around.
Plesiosaur Fast Fact – Although many pictures show the Plesiosaur raising its head and neck out of the water (as in the picture above) it is believed that this would have been impossible for these large creatures. They were actually unable to bend their head up to that degree and even if they could gravity would have tipped them over. That cursed gravity always ruins everything.
Unfortunately that does it for Wild Facts – Extinction. Thanks for reading and be sure to join me next week for some animal facts on living species. Have a great weekend.
