page_title: Timeline of plesiosaur research
section_title: 1870s
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of plesiosaur research / 19th century / 1870s
caption_attribution_description: English: LadyofHats took the foto on the "Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris"
context_page_description: This timeline of plesiosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, taxonomic revisions, and cultural portrayals of plesiosaurs, an order of marine reptiles that flourished during the Mesozoic Era. The first scientifically documented plesiosaur fossils were discovered during the early 19th century by Mary Anning. Plesiosaurs were actually discovered and described before dinosaurs. They were also among the first animals to be featured in artistic reconstructions of the ancient world, and therefore among the earliest prehistoric creatures to attract the attention of the lay public. Plesiosaurs were originally thought to be a kind of primitive transitional form between marine life and terrestrial reptiles. However, now plesiosaurs are recognized as highly derived marine reptiles descended from terrestrial ancestors.
  Early researchers thought that plesiosaurs laid eggs like most reptiles. They commonly imagined plesiosaurs crawling up beaches and burying eggs like turtles. However, later opinion shifted towards the idea that plesiosaurs gave live birth and never went on dry land.
context_section_description: 1870
  March 8
  Cope's mentor Joseph Leidy gave a presentation reporting his recent discovery that Cope's reconstruction of Elasmosaurus positioned the skull at the end of the tail rather than the end of the neck.
  Leidy's discovery embarrassed Cope, who began spreading notice of an unspecified error in his Elasmosaurus description with an offer to replace it with a corrected version and its second volume.
  November
  O. C. Marsh collected a better an additional specimen of Polycotylus in Kansas that was better preserved than the type described by Cope. The specimen is now catalogued as YPM 1125.
  1871
  Phillips described the species now known as Pliosaurus macromerus.
  Phillips described the species now known as Cryptoclidus eurymerus.
  Cope described the species now known as Hydralmosaurus serpentinus.
  Cope inaccurately referred to Polycotylus as "the first true plesiosauroid found in America."
  1872
  Cope imagined elasmosaurs feeding by craning their necks above the water and striking downward at fish long distances from their bodies.
  B. F. Mudge discovered ten articulated vertebrae in the Fairport Chalk of Kansas that he mistook for ichthyosaur remains. These fossils are now catalogued as KUVP 1325.
  1873
  Sauvage described the new species Liopleurodon ferox.
  Joseph Savage discovered a second, better preserved Trinacromerum "anonymum" in Kansas.
  1874
  Hector described the new species Mauisaurus haasti.
  Seeley described the new species Muraenosaurus leedsi.
  B. F. Mudge discovered fragments of a large elasmosaur skeleton in the Fort Hays Limestone of Kansas.
  Mudge and Williston excavated the remains another large Kansan plesiosaur, this one from the Smoky Hill Chalk. The specimen may be a Styxosaurus snowii and is currently catalogued as YPM 1644. It was the first plesiosaur Mudge had ever found with gastroliths and the first plesiosaur encountered by Williston in general.
  Hector reported the presence of elasmosaur remains in New Zealand.
  Seeley published a paper intended to help improve the state of science's understanding of plesiosaur shoulder girdle anatomy, which had been muddled by the poor preservation of the fossils many early paleontologists had to rely on for their observations.
  1875
  Cope once more portrayed elasmosaurs as feeding by fishing from a distance with heads held above the waterline.
  1876
  Blake in Tate and Blake described the new species Plesiosaurus longirostris.
  1877
  Lydekker described the species now known as Simolestes indicus.
  Mudge discussed the gastroliths of YPM 1644 in a scientific publication. He concluded that plesiosaur exploited gastroliths to assist in breaking down food the way many modern birds and reptiles do.
  1879
  Lydekker described the species now known as Cryptoclidus richardsoni.
caption: Skull of Cryptoclidus. C. eurymerus was originally described by Phillips in 1871.
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