Elasmosaurus Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓Elasmosaurus had 72 neck vertebrae, more than any other known plesiosaur, meaning its neck alone stretched roughly 23 feet (7 meters), longer than most dinosaurs were tall.
• ✓When paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope first assembled the Elasmosaurus skeleton in 1868, he famously put the skull on the wrong end, attaching it to the tail, and his rival Othniel Charles Marsh never let him forget it, using the blunder to mock him in their legendary Bone Wars feud.
• ✓Elasmosaurus lived in the Western Interior Seaway, a vast shallow ocean that split North America in two from Canada all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, meaning Kansas was once underwater.
• ✓Despite its enormous neck, scientists believe Elasmosaurus could not lift its head and neck high out of the water like a sea monster because its neck was too heavy and too stiff, so the classic sea serpent image is almost certainly wrong.
• ✓Gastroliths, which are stones swallowed deliberately, have been found associated with elasmosaurid relatives, suggesting these marine reptiles may have gulped rocks to help with digestion or buoyancy control, similar to how modern crocodiles use stones today.