Swims like a penguin, and looks like the Loch Ness Monster, our new dinosaur toy is not even a dinosaur really but a marine reptile. We have many dinosaur toys but this is the first one which lived purely in the sea.
The Plesiosaur was discovered by the amazing fossil hunter Mary Anning in 1823. They lived about 215 million to 65.5 million years ago in the seas all around the world.
Our newest dinosaur toy, like the pterodactyl dinosaur toy, is another one which actually isn't technically a dinosaur. Plesiosaurs lived during the time of the dinosaurs but they didn’t have hips and legs. Instead they had flippers that they used to paddle through the water. These flippers had many bones in them giving them the ability to rotate their bodies.
We have dinosaur toys which are carnivores like the T Rex and dinosaur toys which are herbivores like the Triceratops but the Plesiosaur is the first ocean based dinosaur toy we have developed. We thought that it was right to put it in our popular aqua blue colour. Plesiosaurs were the great marine carnivores of the oceans feeding on fish and birds. Originally it was thought that they laid eggs on shore like turtles but more recent research showed they carried their babies and looked after their young for an extended time like whales do. And like whales plesiosaurs breathed air and were good swimmers, but probably very slow. It is thought that they cruised just below the surface of the water snapping up unsuspecting fish and sea birds
They were a strange shape – they had long necks and a short tail which they used for steering. They were very long, about 3-5m, with a tiny head, short snout and a jaw which they could open very wide.
They do look very similar to what most people envisage the Loch Ness Monster looks and many people believe that the Loch Ness Monster was in fact the very last of the plesiosaurs. This belief was backed up by the discovery that Plesiosaurs lived not only in the sea but in fresh water too so they could have been the original Loch Ness Monster if you can just disregard the millions of years between their extinction and the sighting of the Loch Ness Monster (or even the formation of the Loch!)
We love dinosaurs and dinosaur toys so we are so happy to welcome this latest addition to our range. Bright, tactile and robust they make the perfect gift for dinosaur mad kids
