paleonet Head on the wrong end

["Mike Everhart" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,
After a recent opportunity to visit the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia, and to examine and photograph the type specimen of
_Elasmosaurus platyurus_ Cope 1868, I have added a new webpage on the
subject at:   http://www.oceansofkansas.com/tale-tail.html

For those of you who are interested, this specimen has a rather colorful
history, being the source of considerable embarrassment to E. D. Cope after
Leidy (1870) reported that he had placed the head on the wrong end. It was
also the first Cretaceous vertebrate reported from Kansas, the first nearly
complete plesiosaur reported from North America, possibly the longest
plesiosaur ever found,and probably the largest fossil recovered anywhere in
the world up to that time.

Discovered, dug and shipped east by a medical doctor (Theophilus Turner)
assigned to Fort Wallace in the wilds of western Kansas during the Indian
wars, the episode whole certainly has the makings of a documentary in my
book.  The correspondence between Turner and Cope makes fascinating
reading.... see:

Almy, K. J., 1987. Thof’s dragon and the letters of Capt. Theophilus Turner,
M.D., U.S. Army, Kansas History Magazine, 10(3):170-200.

Comments /corrections appreciated.

Regards,

Mike Everhart
Adjunct Curator of Paleontology
Sternberg Museum of Natural History
Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS
http://www.oceansofkansas.com