HOME | DD
Kiabugboy β Modern Plesiosaur
#animal #antartica #conceptart #creaturedesign #digitalart #environment #illustration #naturalhistory #paleoart #paleontology #plesiosaur #wildlife #speculativeevolution #art
Published: 2018-12-12 03:01:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 45994; Favourites: 743; Downloads: 101
Redirect to original
Description
Populations of plesiosaurs have been declining world wide, all but a handful of large species now still roam the open oceans while smaller plesiosaurs fare even worse from poaching and pollution, those living along coasts and mangroves have pretty much vanished.A small deep sea dwelling plesiosaur had recently been discovered, a peculiar one which has adapted to filter feeding In the frigid ocean depths of Greenland and Iceland. However, this animal too is already at the brink of extinction, as the very few that were discovered were those tangled in fishing nets and choked to death after ingesting microplastics carried over from ocean currents all over the globe.
Related content
Comments: 38
π: 0 β©: 0
π: 0 β©: 0
π: 1 β©: 0
I had a theory when I was younger that Nessie was a filter feeder lol. This concept is awesome BTW
Honestly if Nessie and other sea/lake monsters were real(not saying I don't believe lol) , they'd probably be something akin to this.Β
π: 2 β©: 0
I imagine they achieve the ability to stay submerged in the deep by breathing through their cloaca like some turtles?
π: 0 β©: 0
this is pretty great! This is so believable
π: 0 β©: 0
I wonder what niche theyβd occupy.
π: 0 β©: 1
They would probably live like Greenland shark eating only what came close to itβs jaws
π: 0 β©: 1
Makes sense I suppose.
π: 0 β©: 0
I think this is a very interesting and intriguingΒ idea to explore and you've made the concept very believable and convincing! Even the mighty saurians of the Mesozoic would not be able to withstand our stampede and you put an good portion of personality into them!
π: 0 β©: 0
Are you sure that what they will look like if they survive to the present day?
π: 0 β©: 1
It's more of a thought excercise of a concept really, what if dinos are around in our modern situation today, they'd probably be experiencing what animals today are experiencing instead of some jurrasic world scenario where there are Hollywood monsters running loose all over the globe.
Clearly if dinos never went extinct there will be no new niches for mammals to radiate into and the world as we know it today won't be a thing.Β
Though if say a small subset of plesiosaur did survive and evade our discovery for so long, living in a place like the Antarctica, I'd argue they might find themselves in the situation of modern day crocodiles. Where they already fit a certain niche in a way that they don't get any selective pressures to change for a very long time.
π: 0 β©: 1
I see.
then what if I release an Elasmosaurus into the sea.
it might be out competed by dolphins but would it also be food for sharks and Orcas (Killer Whale)?
π: 0 β©: 1
honestly i'm not the best person to speculate on this. Some real paleontologists/paleoartists like joschua knuppe/ mark witton/ etc who spent their lives doing paleoart would probably know much more than me.
but i mean if i were to try to tackle that question, it seems like there's a lot to consider..Β how much has the seas changed ever since the time of the dinosaurs? especially with the climate. are elasmosaursΒ and plesiosaurs reliant on there being many ammonites in the seas because they seem pretty abundant and common back in the day? if ammonites and shelled cephalopods never went extinct, would dolphins and whales evolve the way they do (assuming they even did if elasmosaursΒ and mosasaurs are still roaming the seas)
i can see sharks and orcas being a threat to elasmosaurs, more so with orcas because they never lived alongside one while sharks were already all over the place when they're around. those crafty bastards could probably take advantage of the elasmosaur's ridiculous necks. then there's also the question of how plesiosaur intelligence compare to cetaceans, or how cetaceans compare in strength and ability to attack to these plesiosaurs.
also i don't know if we still have many large whales today that aren't filter feeders, because that means they're not really competing with elasmosaurs for food
going back to the antartic plesiosaur concept, i can see orcas and other cetaceans being one of the reason why they had to resort to this kind of hypothethical lifestyle, essentially the existing cetaceans preventing them from being the apex predators of the antartic. also the seafloor in these areas are teeming with carpets of benthic invertebrates like starfish and sea urchins, which apparently are one of the food sources of the elasmosaurs.
π: 1 β©: 2
Ok I'll ask those paleoartists, but I have met a real paleontologist before and I haven't asked him that question because I never thought about in those times
But I thought Plesiosaurs eat fish and squid since fish have been on earth since the Devonian long before dinosaurs.
π: 0 β©: 1
Yeah they seem to eat a lot of things, aside from ocean floor dwellers they did also hunt schools of fish, ammonites and smaller plesiosaurs. Reading through wikipedia, apparently an elasmosaur fossil was found with bitemarks from a kronosaur
π: 0 β©: 1
An awesome drawing!! I do hope you do more cryptids! Love the detail!
π: 1 β©: 0
Absolutely amazing concept! I love it!!
o does it go to the surface to breath as normal plesios do or does have a work around?
π: 0 β©: 2
It's interesting to note that turtles can spend months underwater. Particularly while hibernating in cold water; partially by slowing their metabolism, partially through cloacal respiration (anal breathing, basically).
It wouldn't be too strange to imagine similar adaptations to achieve extreme periods underwater on these other reptiles while keeping a somewhat concious in cold water. These plesiosaurs could spend days on end doing little more than floating forward eating pankton and go back for air every moon-less for air to avoid predators. Thus making them extremely elusive to surface observers.
π: 0 β©: 1
Exactly, it would be perfect!
π: 0 β©: 0
Looking through examples of deep diving mammals, I guess it is more likely that these plesiosaurs would dive down to find food instead living most of their lives there. Cuvier's beaked whales and Weddell seals apparently can dive pretty deep everyday to find food. They're capable of compressing their ribcages and exhale 90% of the air in their lungs before diving so they can sink more easily. But once down there their metabolism almost completely shuts Down so they don't quickly use up their already depleted oxygen. So yeah, I guess this plesiosaur would evolve the same kind of mechanisms, while on the surface they act more like basking sharks, idly filtering food
π: 0 β©: 1
If I am not wrong, there actually were filter-feeding plesiosaurs.
The most recent one was the antarcticΒ Morturneria Seyseymourensis.Β
π: 0 β©: 1
Yup, I found about it Midway through drawing this creature, but it would make a very convenient ancestor for this hypothetical plesiosaur, if the Antarctic plesio had specialized to this nieche even more
π: 0 β©: 2
π: 0 β©: 0
oooh! yes I like it!
π: 0 β©: 0
