Bottom-feeding plesiosaurs

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

These authors look vaguely familiar... :-)

C.R. McHenry, A.G Cook, and S. Wroe (2005). Bottom-feeding plesiosaurs. 
Science 310: 75.

Abstract "Elasmosaurid plesiosaurs were an important part of Cretaceous 
marine reptile communities and are generally considered to have been 
predators of small, agile, free-swimming fish and cephalopods.  Two 
elasmosaurid specimens from Aptian and Albian deposits in Queensland, 
Australia, include fossilized gut contents dominated by benthic 
invertebrates: bivalves, gastropods, and crustaceans.  Both specimens also 
contained large numbers of gastroliths (stomach stones).  These finds point 
to a wider niche than has previously been supposed for these seemingly 
specialized predators and may also influence long-running controversy over 
the question of gastrolith function in plesiosaurs."