page_title: Timeline of plesiosaur research
section_title: 1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of plesiosaur research / 20th century / 1960s
caption_attribution_description: English: Rear view of the opalised Addyman Plesiosaur fossil at the South Australian Museum. Original filename = P2211109.JPG
context_page_description: This timeline of plesiosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, taxonomic revisions, and cultural portrayals of plesiosaurs, an order of marine reptiles that flourished during the Mesozoic Era. The first scientifically documented plesiosaur fossils were discovered during the early 19th century by Mary Anning. Plesiosaurs were actually discovered and described before dinosaurs. They were also among the first animals to be featured in artistic reconstructions of the ancient world, and therefore among the earliest prehistoric creatures to attract the attention of the lay public. Plesiosaurs were originally thought to be a kind of primitive transitional form between marine life and terrestrial reptiles. However, now plesiosaurs are recognized as highly derived marine reptiles descended from terrestrial ancestors.
  Early researchers thought that plesiosaurs laid eggs like most reptiles. They commonly imagined plesiosaurs crawling up beaches and burying eggs like turtles. However, later opinion shifted towards the idea that plesiosaurs gave live birth and never went on dry land.
context_section_description: 1960
  Tarlo described the new species Pliosaurus andrewsi.
  1962
  Welles described the species now known as Callawayasaurus colombiensis.
  Welles reported the presence of elasmosaur remains in South America.
  Chatterjee and Zinsmeister reported the presence of elasmosaur remains in Antarctica.
  1967
  Barney H. Newman and Lambert Beverly Halstead Tarlo argued that long-necked plesiosaur flippers could only move horizontally, and while maneuverable, they were confined to surface waters by an inability to dive.
  South Australian opal miners John and Molly Addyman discovered a plesiosaur whose remains had been converted to opal.
caption: The Addyman plesiosaur
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