Liopleurodon

Product Information

Although the Liopleurodon was a giant animal, it was not as big as the Australian giant Kronosaurus, which had a maximum length of 36 feet. Otherwise called “smooth-sided tooth,” this now-extinct reptile was an apex predator that roamed the oceans between the Middle Jurassic and Late Jurassic periods. From its physical characteristics to its behavior, diet, and more, it is evident that the Liopleurodon was a formidable animal. They adjusted to the marine lifestyle in the water by developing stiff vertebrae and flippers to aid movement.

According to sources, the Liopleurodon gave birth to one offspring at a time, and they were likely the size of a baby whale. Although the initial fossil discoveries were centered around dinosaurs, other creatures were soon discovered, all of which gave researchers an insight into the prehistoric era. They remained at the top of the food chain until the Cretaceous period, which ushered in a more powerful species that likely led to their decline and ultimate disappearance.It is a spectacular figure and is by far the most accurate pliosaur toy reviewed on The Dinosaur Toy Blog so far. All of the Walking with Dinosaurs figures are almost perfectly symmetrical, which is a let down in most of the figures which appear to be just ‘standing around’. However, this is not so much of an issue in the aquatic Liopleurodon. The figure is 24cm long. Liopleurodon remains have also been found in and around Germany and England. Gage Beasley’s Prehistoric Shirt Collection Gage Beasley’s Prehistoric Plush Collection Noè, L. F. 2001. A taxonomic and functional study of the Callovian (Middle Jurassic) Pliosauroidea (Reptilia, Sauropterygia). Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Derby. They also believe that they weighed 2200-3700 pounds, sometimes more than that, making this species one of the world’s biggest and strongest predatory animals.

The first fossils of this ancient creature were discovered in 1873 in the Boulogne sur Mer region of France. Fossilized tooth of Liopleurodon | Madzia via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0 As the apex predators that they were, Liopleurodon had a wide variety of prey, ranging from ichthyosaurs to marine crocodiles, sharks, and other pliosaurs. Although it’s challenging to get the accurate appearance of the animal with so little evidence of its existence, paleontologists have drawn inspiration from general pliosaur anatomy. This brawl is one of the reasons scientists believe that most youngsters did not make it to adulthood.Since then, some corrections have been made to the Liopleurodon’s actual shape; you can find a reconstructed skeleton at the Museum of Paleontology in Tubingen, Germany. Ellis, R. 2003. Sea dragons – predators of the prehistoric oceans. University Press of Kansas, 313 pp. Likely evolving from archosaurians and turtles, these reptiles developed aquatic features that made them thrive in the ocean. Over the years, people have tried to draw or design the Liopleurodon differently, some as a two-dimensional image, others as three-dimensional toys and sculptures. Conclusion

This does not negate that the Liopleurodon was one of the largest animals about 160 million years ago. Mosasaurs were much bigger and had more powerful jaws than their predecessors, which gave the Liopleurodon real competition. Also, most of these marine reptiles had similar diets, which consisted of cephalopods and other sea creatures. Some were also known to be scavengers when the situation called for it.

Dimensions

Halstead, L. B. 1971. Liopleurodon rossicus (Novozhilov) – a pliosaur from the Lower Volgian of the Moscow Basin. Palaeontology, 14, 566-571. A highly recommended online toy store featuring a wide variety of Papo, Schleich, Safari Ltd., CollectA, and other figures. Ultimately, these carnivorous reptiles started to decline until they finally disappeared about 150 million years ago, around the beginning of the Cretaceous period. Interactions with Other Species After birth, baby Liopleurodon likely stayed with their mothers until they were mature enough to care for themselves.

Robinson, J. A. 1977. Intracorporal force transmission in plesiosaurs. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie un Paläontologie – Abhandlungen, 153, 86–128. L. B. Tarlo (who later went by the name of L. B. Halstead) repurposed part of this iconic reconstruction in at least one other publication, captioned as Liopleurodon (Halstead 1982). However, It was apparently Jane Ann Robinson (1975) who first reused the reconstruction under that genus. Robinson (1977) cites a personal communication with Halstead, so they were certainly acquainted with each other by 1977, so it is possible, likely even, that Robinson consulted with Tarlo/Halstead a couple of years earlier when she reused and captioned the reconstruction as Liopleurodon. Tarlo, L. B. 1959. Stretosaurus gen. nov., a giant pliosaur from the Kimmeridge Clay. Palaeontology, 2, 39-55. Still, since there are only a few postcranial fossils to work with, it is almost impossible to provide the accurate size of this reptile. While some reptiles during the Jurassic period laid eggs, Liopleurodon was one of the few species that gave birth to their young ones alive.There was no substantial evidence to support this claim, but the series’ producers used this outrageous size anyway.