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Large freshwater plesiosaurian from Cretaceous of Australia



From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com

A new online paper:



Roger B.J. Benson, Erich M.G. Fitzgerald, Thomas H. Rich & Patricia
Vickers-Rich (2013)
Large freshwater plesiosaurian from the Cretaceous  of Australia.
Alcheringa (advance online publication)
DOI:10.1080/03115518.2013.772825
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03115518.2013.772825#.UcpKkvm1FcQ

We report a large plesiosaurian tooth from the freshwater early–middle
Aptian (Early Cretaceous) Eumeralla Formation of Victoria, Australia.
This, combined with records of smaller plesiosaurian teeth with an
alternative morphology, provides evidence for a multitaxic freshwater
plesiosaurian assemblage. Dental and body size differences suggest
ecological partitioning of sympatric freshwater plesiosaurians
analogous to that in modern freshwater odontocete cetaceans. The
evolutionarily plastic body plan of Plesiosauria may have facilitated
niche differentiation and helped them to exclude ichthyosaurs from
freshwater environments during the Mesozoic. However, confirmation of
this hypothesis requires the discovery of more complete remains.