Labels:animal | text | fish OCR: X LONG-NECKED PLESIOSAUR While dinosaurs dominated the land, big, streamlined reptiles with limbs shaped as flippers scoured the seas. Elasmosaurus ("metal-plated lizard") was among the last and longest of these. It belonged to the long-necked plesiosaurs ("near lizards"): weirdly shaped creatures once described as resembling "a snake threaded through a turtle". This barrel-bodied beast grew as long as a gray whale, yet its head was tiny and its tail was short. Most of its length consisted of a narrow, flexible neck, supported by an incredible 71 vertebrae.
