Talk:Plesiosaur

Supplemented with text from Spanish Wikipedia

Do they breath O2?
Could perhaps ad a line clarifying whether they filter oxygen from the water or breath with lungs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.83.130.88 (talk) 00:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * They did breathe air. FunkMonk (talk) 00:29, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes Asocos (talk) 01:57, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Mary Annings Discovery or Not
Following the recent changes by MWAK I would like to point out that Mary Annings discovery was not of the partial skeleton discovered in 1821 but of the near complete skeleton discovered in 1823. A record of which is present in the form of a letter from Mary Annings dated 26th Dec 1826 [|see here]. I am obviously not a expert in reading old letter and i cannot make out anything it says. Can someone look at this and restore the details about discovery of Mary Annings in the article if it is legitimate. Ray Lightyear (talk) 10:01, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * To avoid a possible misunderstanding: I originally inserted the passage according to which Annings discovered the 1823 skeleton. This was later changed to a claim that Annings also discovered the 1821 skeleton, an apparent mistake present in many popular science books on the subject. On 4 June, I restored the text to the more original version, so no further restoration is necessary ;o).--MWAK (talk) 08:54, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Bias / Uncited Claims on the Subject of Surviving Plesiosaurs
This is a very well written and researched article, particularly in the sections on phylogeny and history, but the Contemporary Culture section is a hopeless mess informed primarily by a willful desire to argue for the continued existence of plesiosaurs. The first paragraph, for instance, acknowledges scientific doubt, but then uses the existence of "living fossils" to argue scientific fallibility. Note that the writer is arguing fallibility, using unrelated information, and entirely without citations. I'm afraid the rest of this section is probably a result of that mindset: it's a muddle of pseudoscience and cryptozoology, neither of which have a valid place in an encyclopedia article except with the caveat "Some people believe ..." and many, many citations.

Can anyone revamp this section, or trim it substantially? I'll take a second look when I have more time.
 * I poked at it a bit. A fair amount of the most egregious stuff was a recent insert, but the whole section is awkward. If you tighten down the screws, people start talking about coelacanths, which gets annoying. J. Spencer (talk) 02:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Classification
This section on the 4 groups is a mess; it really needs attention from someone who has a good knowledge on the subject. [My 'source' is the Paleobiology database]
 * 1) What are pistosaurids? There is a genus 'pistosaurus' and a family 'pistosauridae' (now considered invalid?) that are both outside 'plesiosauria' and a clade, 'pistosauria', which includes 'plesiosauria'. 'Pistosaurids' can't be considered a group within 'plesiosauria' and therefore should not be mentioned in this section.
 * 2) 'Pliosaurs' is a rather vague term, as it can seemingly refer to a genus, family or suborder (although I thought that the ending 'oidea' meant a superfamily). Wouldn't in be better to use 'Pliosauroidea'?
 * 3) Why are 'Elasmosaurus' & 'Cryptoclidus' considered to be 2 of the major groups, when they are just 2 genera out of 43 (although some may now be considered invalid) in the related families 'Elasmosauridae' & 'Cryptoclididae'? These families belong to the clade 'Cryptoclidia', which has another 22 genera, mainly in 2 more families. This clade forms, along with another 2 families and 5 (basal?) genera, the superfamily 'Plesiosauroidea'. Finally, something that looks like a major group!Glevum (talk) 16:36, 5 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I've expanded the section somewhat and hope these objections are now met. The ~oidea suffix can both designate a superfamily and a suborder. I surmise the ill-advised use of the genera as if they were major groups was a result of a confusion with the use of a genus as a collective noun indicating individuals. In both cases it functions as a plural.--MWAK (talk) 07:08, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Taxobox image
Now the same image is used twice. How about a nice fossil for the taxobox? FunkMonk (talk) 21:55, 22 October 2013 (UTC)


 * If sufficiently complete, a skeleton might give an adequate impression to the reader.--MWAK (talk) 07:56, 24 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I guess the ones here are the best i could find, but none are really great... Also, probably "better" with a long necked plesiosaur than a pliosaur. What do you think? FunkMonk (talk) 14:36, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, I like the first or the last ones. In any case, there is no more images of Plesiosaurus itself? --Rextron (talk) 19:09, 2 November 2013 (UTC)


 * There are, but not very good ones! The best ones are in the Plesiosaurus article. I can try to clean up the one we choose, they all suffer from glare and other things. The sculpt on the right here could have been good from another angle... These two (I guess they are both Cryptoclidus) could had been good, if they were not so dark and blurry. I may change the image so we can just see how it looks.FunkMonk (talk) 19:15, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, but what about a image of a skull with the neck?--Rextron (talk) 09:49, 6 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Showing only a skull is less than ideal. Also, many people are no doubt incapable of mentally "fleshing out" a skeleton. And any skeleton that looks complete, is probably also partly fake, so why not use a reconstruction of the life animal? The present image is quite good and there is no shame in using it twice :o).--MWAK (talk) 13:29, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * To me at least, a skeleton, no matter how reconstructed (first one seems to be a complete fossil, though), is always closer to what we actually have than a life restoration. But the quality of the image is also important of course. And with that many other interesting images, I think using the same one is kind of boring! For example, if we want one more of Plesiosaurus, we do have other good restorations of it. FunkMonk (talk) 22:32, 6 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Then again, you could also see it as paleoart finally mimicking PopArt ;o). But if we want to avoid repetition we could use this one: Plesiosaurus 3DB.jpg


 * A version of it is already used but would have to be moved anyway as it doesn't illustrate the text very well. By the way, as I said, when a skeleton looks complete, it's likely fake. The Hauffs were masters in restoring fossils. In this case the skull, the neck spines, the tail and all four flippers were added. What is shown is basically a fake shell surrounding a small core containing the real find. Caveat emptor...--MWAK (talk) 09:22, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Hehe, damn! I like the new image, but is the flipper pose correct? FunkMonk (talk) 18:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, the gait was likely very variable, leaving almost unlimited freedom for artistic interpretation. The stroke, as depicted, is plausible. The retracted front flippers of the lower animal could be performing a power stroke to below and behind, which works almost as well as stroke to the front and is in fact the usual method employed by turtles, or be positioning themselves for the upstroke, which would fit nicely the fact that a prey has just been caught. If the power stroke was to behind, the fact that an "8" was described implies that the recovery stroke was to the rear as well, as shown by the animal at the top. The most important flaw of the image is that the flipper bases are probably a bit too narrow: they would likely have been covered by thick muscles, tendons and cartilage.--MWAK (talk) 08:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)


 * This is a pretty good photo, not sure what it shows, though. FunkMonk (talk) 00:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Appears to be Plesiosaurus itself, I've placed it there. FunkMonk (talk) 06:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Warm/cold blooded?
The article on the Loch Ness Monster states that a reason against it being a plesiosaur is that they were "probably cold-blooded", yet this article states that they were "probably warm-blooded". Clearly the two articles contradict each other, but which one needs to be altered? (I'm inclined to suspect that the Plesiosaur article is correct, as it seems less likely that the mistake could have slipped through on its own article.)

EDIT - although I've just noticed that the Popular Culture section of this article also refers to the plesiosaur as "presumed cold-blooded", meaning that this article also contradicts itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.62.184 (talk) 10:00, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * This article is incorrect and unsourced in that matter. They might have been warm-blooded or they might have been cold blooded. We don't know per many many sources. Right now to say they were probably warm-blooded is incorrect for an encyclopedia. It should say they were possibly warm blooded. Remember this is wikipedia and should never be used as a source because of these kinds of errors that need correcting. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:19, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * It is, of course, not unsourced: check out the "Metabolism" section. There is little direct evidence available, but such as there is, indicates that plesiosaurs were warm-blooded. Summing this up by saying that they were "possibly" endothermic would be a bit deceptive as it would suggest that cold-bloodedness were to be expected but that it is just possible they were warm-blooded. The opposite is true: large marine vertebrate K-strategist apex predators with a high apparent activity level are expected to be at least partially endothermic. As regards the apparent contradiction in the Popular Culture section: the "presumed coldblooded" refers to the presumptions of those wanting to use it as an argument that the Loch Ness Monster was not a plesiosaur. It does not say "presumably coldblooded". I'll improve that.--MWAK (talk) 09:37, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

A 2018 paper concludes that they were likely warm-blooded (endothermic):: Quantitative histological models suggest endothermy in plesiosaurs. Looks reasonable to me, but I'll let someone more familiar with the article add the new research. --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Cryptoclididae
According to the Wikipedia article, the group Cryptoclididae went extinct in the Late Cretaceous, but all the groups mentioned in the article went extinct in the Jurassic. Which mean that some of the info is incorrect. 84.210.27.245 (talk) 12:00, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like there were some Cretaceous species previously thought to be cryptoclidids but which were reclassified. The article was updated to say this but did not also update the time range. It's been fixed now. Dinoguy2 (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually the recently named Abyssosaurus was found to be the first Cretaceous member of that family, but it's from the Hauterivian - so not Late Cretaceous either way... This makes the Cryptoclididae one of only three radiations of plesiosaurians that made it to the Cretaceous - so I think it's worth mentioning. Rnnsh (talk) 19:49, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Is this reputable?
I was wondering whether or not http://plesiosaur.com/ is considered reputable or not  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 17:25, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * In any case, it is probably better to use peer-reviewed sources. I doubt that site has information that hasn't already been published elsewhere. FunkMonk (talk) 21:32, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * This one is from an actual plesiosaur researcher. The same applies here though. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 03:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Max Hawthorne adding his own work
From January to February of this year, User:PaleoPrefect made several edits to this page. All the additions cite unpublished material by novelist Max Hawthorne (either preprints or social media posts, both of which probably shouldn't be used as reference material for an article like this). From the summary of this image (and how he seems to drop Hawthorne's name at every opportunity), I'm pretty certain PaleoPrefect is Hawthorne himself. This violates WP:OR and WP:SELFPUB and should be deleted, no? Shuvuuia (talk) 06:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Because most of his conclusions echo what other people have already said, I'd say you can delete it regardless  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 18:54, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * and just a heads up that content was added again by  and they reverted my deletion 3 times. I have added a warning to their user page. Smirkybec (talk) 19:44, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Is Termatosaurus a plesiosaur?
It says that Termatosaurus is a possible plesiosaur, but in its own article it says that Termatosaurus is a dubious archosaur. Magnatyrannus (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Browsing through papers via scholar.google, it depends on whom you ask, apparently, as there are plenty of recent papers that keep referring to it as a phytosaur, and some papers who refer to it as a plesiosaur. As a compromise, I'd leave it in and stick a question mark or some other marker of dubiousness for now.--Mr Fink (talk) 23:12, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thats the labeling that existed in the article until unilaterally removed it without reference or prose addition.  This removal has now been reverted by two different editors, with note to discuss and add references rather than simply deleting the entry. Magnatyrannus if you have issues with the current article structure, what prose and references do you suggest adding/changing to reflect the ambiguous nature of Termatosaurus phylogey?-- Kev  min  § 02:30, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Probably not Asocos (talk) 01:59, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 5 February 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: mover per request. Favonian (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Plesiosauria → Plesiosaur – Having the article just named "plesiosaur" would make more sense as it is the common name and would be more in line with dinosaur, pterosaur, ichthyosaur and mosasaur. Maykii (talk) 17:10, 5 February 2022 (UTC) Maykii (talk) 17:10, 5 February 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:57, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support - It is the common name and there appears to be precedent with other similar articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:20, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support, though either way is fine, really. If 'plesiosaur' is a tad more accessible to readers, then great. Joe  (talk) 12:57, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per above. ╠╣uw [ talk ] 16:05, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support because of everything above. It just makes sense. Logosvenator wikiensis (talk) 15:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. YorkshireExpat (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Plesiosaur Size note
In the article it's said that the largest Plesiosaurs rivalled the size of the largest ichthyosaurs with a length of 15 meters. however S. sikanniensis, A Triassic Ichthyosaur reached lengths of 21 meters. Unless it's size has become dubious in recent years this seems like a mistake. Noxious gas (talk) 20:06, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Antarctica
Oldest creature on the continent? The article says 150 million years, which is 30 million years younger than Cryolophosaurus 2600:1700:6801:C10:4D59:2A5C:395C:4278 (talk) 07:43, 27 May 2023 (UTC)