Marine Reptiles from Australia coloring pages

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Kronosaurus vs Plesiosaur

First of all, I want to make some terms clear.  Plesiosaurs were a type of many of Marine Reptiles from the Mesozoic Era. They did live with the dinosaurs, but they were NOT dinosaurs.  There were two main types of Plesiosaurs.  The ones with long necks were just called Plesiosaurs or Long-Neck Plesiosaurs.  Then the Plesiosaurs with short necks and huge heads were called Pliosaurs. In the drawing, the huge animal is the Pliosaur called Kronosaurus.  The Long-Neck animal is a type of Pliosaur with a particularly long neck called an Elasmosaur.  

This scene represents a recent find in Australia.  An Elasmosaur, a type of Plesiosaur was apparently attacked and had its back half bitten off.  What was found was a young Elasmosaur skeleton, including the head.  The back half of the marine reptile was missing.  It has been assumed that a Kronosaurus, a large short-necked marine reptile had bitten the poor young Elasmosaur in half.  

Many Plesiosaurr fossilized skeletons are found without a head.  It is thought that a Plesiosaur would bloat and feel with gas after death and thus float.  The result is scavengers would eat it and usually bite off the head.  But this Plesiosaur, (an Elsasmosaur to be specific) was bitten in half, and the air and other gasses in the young Plesiosaur (AKA Elasmosaur) thus sank immediately to the bottom of the ocean.  

100 million years ago the majority of Australia was underwater and thus part of the Southern Ocean.  But the Earth was warmer than with no polar ice packs.  Global cooling created the ice packs and the sea level worldwide went down.  So this fossil was found on what now is land.  

The Pterosaur is the largest Pterosaur found in Australia.  It is Thapunngaka shawi. It had a wingspan of 23 feet or 7 meters wide.  It is assumed that Thapunngaka was a piscivore or fish eater.  It had a crest on both the top and bottom of the end of its snout.  It had many sharp teeth for catching and eating fish. 

Kronosaurus was around 36 feet or about 11 meters long.  It had a huge head of around 8 feet or 2 1/2 

meters long.  It certainly was a top predator in ancient Australian waters. It was also a type of Plesiosaur but short-neck Plesiosaurs are called Pliosaurs.  

The new type of Elasmosaur or Plesiosaur has not yet been named.  It actually had a much longer neck than I drew here. (Sorry.)   This fossilized specimen that was bitten in half is estimated to have been 20 feet or around 6 meters long. 

NOTE:  This drawing, in printable form, is found by clicking on the "Paleontology" button.  Then scroll to the bottom of the "Mesozoic Life" part of the list.  Click on the title and you'll get the printable page. 

Below is another similar drawing from a previous post. . . and a drawing of some Elasmosaurs with the correct portion of neck to body length.  

Kronosaurus hunting Plesiosaurs

Elasmosaurs Mother and Calf