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Re: Sea reptile is biggest on record

Mike,

If that's the Oxford jaw, then it's probably closer to 3m (from what I remember of Leslie Noe's description a while back). But before you get too excited, the jaw on a ~10m Kronosaurus is well over 2 metres long - at least 2.25m. Assuming geometric simultude, you get just over 13m for a pliosaur with a 3m mandible. Liopleurodon / Pliosaurus do have a slightly different body proportion to Kronosaurus - the neck in Krono is slightly shorter, the skull probably slightly larger - but you're still a *long* way from 23m.

I think Dan Chure is right - we should try to avoid the temptation to 'monsterise' these things, and as you know from those wierd big things that you have an affection for, you need to be really carefully about extrapolating body sizes from scrappy material. In any case, we can generally rely on the media to put things way out of proportion.

Cheers
Col


Mike Taylor wrote:
Colin McHenry writes:
> > Can anyone speculate if this find even outclasses the several
> > undescribed large pliosaur finds from the UK, which the WWD
> > series ran away pell-mell with on the Liopluridon segment
> > "fantasy" segment?
>
> Sure. S. sikanniensis is way bigger than the upper range of body sizes > that can be speculated for UK pliosaur material ;-).

Even this lower jaw?
        http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/242640895/

I found this pretty freakin' awesome when I saw it.  I didn't measure,
and my memory is hazy; but unless Mark Witton has a _very_ small
sister, that jaw has to be at least 2m long, probably more.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?" --
         Steven Wright.




--
Colin McHenry
Computation Biomechanics Research Group http://www.compbiomech.com/
School of Engineering (Mech Eng)
University of Newcastle
NSW 2308

t: +61 2 4921 8879