Plesiosaur

Tom claims to have seen a plesiosaur in the lake.

Mary has wanted to be a paleontologist ever since she first saw a drawing of a plesiosaur.

The study did rule out the possibility that Nessie, the favorite of folklore, is a long-necked ancient reptile called a plesiosaur. The study also rejected speculations that it might be a Greenland shark or a giant sturgeon.

Elasmosaurs are a genus of plesiosaur that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous.

"Look!" cried Olson. "Would you look at the giraffe comin' up out o' the bottom of the say?" We looked in the direction he pointed and saw a long, glossy neck surmounted by a small head rising above the surface of the river. Presently the back of the creature was exposed, brown and glossy as the water dripped from it. It turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizard-like mouth, emitted a shrill hiss and came for us. The thing must have been sixteen or eighteen feet in length and closely resembled pictures I had seen of restored plesiosaurs of the lower Jurassic.

It is the first time in Australia the head and body of an elasmosaur, a type of plesiosaur, has been found in one piece.