page_title: Timeline of plesiosaur research
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of plesiosaur research / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of the skeletal anatomy of a Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus from Conybeare's 1824 paper that described an almost complete plesiosaur skeletion found by Mary Anning in 1823
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.
caption: 1824 skeletal reconstruction of Plesiosaurus by Henry De la Beche
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