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Paleontologists believe they may have discovered a new species of dinosaur after digging up the remains of a 165 million year old sea creature. The five-and-a-half metre plesiosaur skeleton was found in a quarry in Peterborough and experts believe it could be a new species of the flippered marine reptile.

Remains of a shark-bitten, 85-million-year-old plesiosaur reveal that around seven sharks likely consumed the enormous dinosaur-era marine reptile in a feeding frenzy, leaving some of their shark teeth stuck in the plesiosaur's bones, according to a new study... the first direct evidence of the diet and feeding behavior of Cretalamna appendiculata, a now-extinct early relative of today's great white sharks... lead author Kenshu Shimada describes as "arguably the most spectacular case of shark feeding on a vertebrate carcass reported to date." ...He and colleagues Takanobu Tsuihiji, Tamaki Sato and Yoshikazu Hasegawa analyzed the shark-decimated plesiosaur, Futabasaurus suzukii, which was unearthed...

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News A fossilised "sea monster" unearthed on an Arctic island is the largest marine reptile known to science, Norwegian scientists have announced.The 150 million-year-old specimen was found on Spitspergen, in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard, in 2006. The Jurassic-era leviathan is one of 40 sea reptiles from a fossil "treasure trove" uncovered on the island. Nicknamed "The Monster", the immense creature would have measured 15m (50ft) from nose to tail. A large pliosaur was big enough to pick up a small car in its jaws and bite it in half Richard Forrest,...

Eighteen-year-old Jamie Jordan, nicknamed the Fossil Kid, made the exciting discovery in a hunt around the disused quarries in Yaxley. And Jamie, of Canwell, Werrington, Peterborough, was amazed to also find the bones of a younger creature just 25 feet below the ground. After months of studying with a palaeontologist, the bigger bones have been confirmed as those of a Plesiosaur -- one of the first kinds of extinct animal known to science... Jamie said: "It was a very rare discovery to find so many different skeletons right next to each other. "After more research, we are hoping to donate...

OSLO, Norway - Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric "monster" reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday. Initial excavation of a site on the Svalbard islands in August yielded the remains, teeth, skull fragments and vertebrae of a reptile estimated to measure nearly 40 feet long, said Joern Harald Hurum of the University of Oslo. "It seems the monster is a new species," he told The Associated Press. The reptile appears be the same species as another sea predator whose remains were found nearby on Svalbard last year....

It has been described as a snake threaded through the body of a turtle, and some imaginative people think there's one living in Loch Ness. The plesiosaur, a marine reptile that lived 160 million years ago, looked like nothing alive today, with a neck that was some 2 metres long, the length of the body and tail combined. Why it needed such a long neck has been a mystery, but now Leslie Noè of the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge, UK, has an answer. Plesiosaurs used their long necks to reach down and feed on soft-bodied animals living on the sea...

I don't like the term 'evolutionist' - would you call a physicist a 'graviationist', or a "weak nuclear force-ist"? I'm a vertebrate palaeontologist, and evolution is an enormously robust theory without which it is virtually impossible to make sense of any of the observations I make in my field. I am not averse to engaging in debate with creationists. I won't call them 'scientific creationists' - what they represent has little to do with science. It is as a simple matter of definition that if you start an investigation stating that anything you discover can only be explained in terms...

Two weeks ago, I reported here on Cryptomundo that there was a report that Russian hauled up a dead plesiosaur. Scott Corrales had forwarded the story to us here at Cryptomundo. The story was taken with a grain of salt, as there were no corroborating photographs. Today, Cryptomundo reader 71_machone informed me that the photos were available on the website English Russia. This is what is reported there with the photos.

Scientists have identified a new species of ancient aquatic reptile that swam the seas when dinosaurs still ruled the Earth. Dubbed Umoonasaurus, the creature lived in waters off the coast of what is now Australia 115 million years ago, when the continent was located much closer to Antarctica than it is now. Plesiosaurs were large marine reptiles that had stocky, barrel-shaped bodies, short tails and paddle-like limbs. Some had long, slender necks, while others had short, squat ones. What made Umoonasaurus stand out from other plesiosaurs were a series of high, thin crests on its head and numerous fused vertebrae...