Australian Mesozoic Marine Reptiles
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Description: Dann Pigdon provides information on plesiosaurs, pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs from Down Under.
Marine Reptiles (NOT Dinosaurs) Australian Mesozoic Marine Reptiles Australia's inland sea (Early Cretaceous) Australia consisted largely of isolated land masses surrounding a vast but shallow inland sea for most of the Cretaceous. It is for this reason that dinosaur remains are found only in a few small areas of the continent, and many of these are the remains of animals that washed out to sea after dying to become preserved in marine sediments. Not surprisingly, given that most of the continent was under water at the time, the remains of marine reptiles are more wide spread. They tend to get less attention than the terrestrial (or aerial) creatures of the Mesozoic, even though they came in many interesting, and downright frightening, forms. Ichthyosaurs (meaning "fish reptiles") resembled a cross between a dolphin and a shark. Plesiosaurs and some of the smaller pliosaurs looked something like a cross between a seal and a snake. Some of the mega-pliosaurs, which included the largest and meanest looking carnivores that the world has even known, are thought to have reached the size of some of the largest of modern whales. Mosasaurs were distant relatives of modern monitor lizards (and perhaps snakes) and looked a bit like a giant crocodile.
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| Page title: | Marine Reptiles (NOT Dinosaurs) |
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| IP-address: | 203.87.94.178 |