In 1998 Bedford Museum was lucky enough to recover a partial skeleton of Peloneustes from the Oxford Clay at Stewartby, Bedfordshire. The excavation of a drainage channel at the brickworks revealed the bones.
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Pliosaurs |
Pliosaurs are very closely related to the long-necked plesiosaurs. Pliosaurs have much larger heads, shorter necks and much bigger and more robust teeth! They were the biggest carnivores that lived in the Jurassic seas. In the same way that there are many different species of whale today, in the past there were different species of pliosaur. Each of these animals was adapted to a slightly different way of life so they did not compete. Liopleurodon, the biggest pliosaur, grew to 20m in length.
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Please click on thumbnails to view larger image |
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Reconstruction of the skeleton of Peloneustes philarchus, a small pliosaur (length 3.5m) |
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In 1998 Bedford Museum was lucky enough to recover a partial skeleton of Peloneustes from the Oxford Clay at Stewartby, Bedfordshire. The excavation of a drainage channel at the brickworks revealed the bones. |
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Broken pliosaur limb bone with bite marks. The marks have been caused by an attacking pliosaur or by scavenging on the carcass. Look how the teeth scraped the bone surface. |
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A reconstruction of the living animal courtesy of Leicester Museum Service |