Sea Monsters, a rant (long)

[Silvio Renesto <silvio.renesto@uninsubria.it>]

Speaking only about what I know at some extent:
Nothosaurs
1) the caption says they have short legs and swum with the tail, which does 
not seem to me to be the common understanding at least for large nothosaurs.
2) It seems to have hindlimbs shorter than forelimbs (the opposite is true) 
and anyway front limbs aren't short.
3) they are featured with clawed hands, where in most cases the last 
phalanx is discoidal not supporting claws.
What it is really comic (or tragic) is that I have been consulted several 
times by a guy involved in the making of the nothosaur model (no fee, 
gratis amore scientia) ANYWAY I am much more upset to realize that they 
have followed NONE of my suggestions/corrections  because in such a way my 
time has been lost twice .
Tanystropheus
1) the caption is simply a load of nonsenses: it seems they copied separate 
sentences from the obsolete description by Wild and put them together 
without any logic sense: from the caption seems that the same animal went 
to land for insects and back to sea for fishes, while originally (and 
questionably) Wild was referring to two different growth stages.
2) what is a head that snaps down?
3) do these guy know how long is an adult Tanystropheus? five-six 
meters,  how much metabolic energy would be required to re-grow a tail in 
an animal of  such size? How did the poor guy feed in water (if he did so) 
without the main organ for propulsion? Well, selection may have favoured 
the appearance of an animal specialized in scaring tanystropheids and 
feeding on their tails: a lot of meat with little risk. Bah!
And this is only the caption, let's go to the animal restoration
1) As pointed out by David Peters, the animal is a bit too snakelike
2)  the front view of the skull is rather pathetic, with that tiny nares 
and were are the teeth? did they see how long are the teeth of 
tanystropheus? Did they ever look at a tanystropheus skull?
3) I suppose that the close up n. 3 represents the foot. The sausage-like 
toes seems not suited for anything in water, if we put T. in water, why its 
toes aren't webbed?
4)  the posture in the "big image" has the limbs gathered close to the body 
rather than sprawling
5) the base of the tail should have been very wide and flat and then it 
tapers posteriorly, in the sloppy restoration both characters are absent, 
it looks like a laterally flattened tail from base to end.
This is really sad. A little amount of entertainment is surely important to 
gain the attention of the public and so pass the informations without being 
boring, but this is the demise of divulgation.
Cheers,

                                                                        Silvio 
Renesto

At 08.59 11/11/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> At 09:26 PM 10/11/03 -0500, Danvarner@aol.com wrote:
> > Here's the cast of the new BBC presentation. Very nice mosasaur. Maybe needs
> > more lip. DV
>
> It needs more than that: Elasmosaurus is described as "a dinosaur of the 
> seas"!!!  Archelon is called an amphibian!!!!  Liopleurodon is said to 
> "dwarf a living sperm whale"....  Odobenocetops is said to have lopsided 
> tusks and no teeth (what are its tusks, then?  Chopped liver?)!
>
> And these are all from pages called (wait for it)... factfiles!!!!!!
>
> To whom does one complain?  Is it worth it?




> --
> Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886
> International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
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_

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Prof. Silvio Renesto
Department of Structural and Functional Biology
Università degli Studi dell'Insubria
via Dunant 3
21100 Varese
Tel. +39-0332-421560

e-mail: silvio.renesto@uninsubria.it