paleonet Plesiosaur swimming experiment

["Mike Everhart" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,
At the SVP meeting last week in Denver, Frank Sanders presented the results 
of experiments conducted in regard to the mechanism by which plesiosaurs 
swam. The simulations were conducted in a swimming pool and utilized the 
talents of two humans swimming in tandem with plastic plesiosaur paddles 
attached to their arms. The various trials were filmed underwater and the 
results showed that the most likely form of plesiosaur movement was 
"underwater flying" with the front and rear paddles moving up and down at 
the same time.  Computer simulations and / or graphics could not have 
demonstrated the process nearly as well as the underwater film showing the 
two humans swimming together. It was a well received demontration.

Ken Carpenter has provided me with a copy the film showing the best swimming 
method. It is now up and running on the Oceans of Kansas website:
http://www.oceansofkansas.com/swim-sim.html

Simply click to download the .wmv file (500 KB).  If you cannot get this 
file to run on your computer, contact me by email and I will send you a much 
larger .mpeg (5 MB) file as an attachment. Any use of this copyrighted film 
should be associated with the abstract of the presentation, which is also 
available on the webpage as a .pdf file.

Sanders, F., K. Carpenter, B. Reed and J. Reed. 2004. Plesiosaur swimming 
reconstructed from skeletal analysis and experimental results. Journal of 
Vertebrate Paleontology 24 (Supplement to 3): 108A-109A.

Regards,

Mike Everhart
Adjunct Curator of Paleontology
Sternberg Museum of Natural History
www.oceansofkansas.com