ZOOLOGY MUSEUM ACQUIRES A CRETACEOUS PLESIOSAUR

The Museum of Comparative Zoology has just finished mounting the skeleton of a new Plesiosaur from the Cretaceous deposits of Kansas which, within a few days, will be placed on exhibition. The mounting of this specimen completes the group of these large marine reptiles which occupy the entire west wall of the Mesozoic room. The other specimens all come from England and Germany.

In Mesozoic times, contemporaneously with the dinosaurs on land, the seas swarmed with these reptiles, sometimes reaching 30 feet in length. They developed a true fish shape, together with front and hind paddles, and some of them had a fish-shaped tail and dorsal fin. Their jaws were long and armed with many sharp-pointed, conical teeth. So numerous were these animals that in the Mesozoic Age they ruled the sea, and even the sharks had difficulty competing with them.