Michael A. Taylor’s research while affiliated with University of Leicester and other places

The evolution and function of the long neck in plesiosaurs, and how the problems associated with stiffness or flexibility were overcome during feeding, or rapid swimming during predator avoidance, are explored, and a new interpretation for the function of the plesiosaur neck is presented. Based on the anatomy of the articular faces of contiguous cervical vertebral centra, neural arches, and cervical ribs, the plesiosaur neck was mainly adapted for ventral bending, with dorsal, lateral and rotational movements all relatively restricted. Predominant ventral bending indicates the neck was adapted for use beneath the body, suggesting feeding in the water column, close to the sea floor, or within soft sediments on the sea floor. A new model is proposed for the plesiosaur bauplan, comprising the head as a filter, straining, sieve feeding or sediment raking apparatus, mounted on a neck which acted as a stiff but ventrally flexible feeding tube, attached to the body which acted as a highly mobile feeding platform. Numerous features of plesiosaurs, including cranial and dental form, cervical vertebral morphology, body shape and limb-based propulsion, conform to this model. Comparative data from modern organisms support this novel explanation for the structure and function of the plesiosaur long neck. This integrative analysis offers an explanation for the evolution of the plesiosaur long neck as a key evolutionary novelty, and why this apparently enigmatic feature remained a prominent feature of plesiosaurs throughout their long evolutionary history.

C. D. Sherborn published in 1940, under the imprint of Cambridge University Press but at his own expense, Where is the – Collection? This idiosyncratic listing of named natural science collections, and their fates, was useful, but incomplete, and uneven in its accuracy. It is argued that those defects were inevitable, given Sherborn’s age and wartime conditions, and that what might seem one of Sherborn’s less impressive works was in fact a pioneering work highly influential in stimulating the production of successor works now much used in curation, and in systematic and descriptive biology and palaeontology. The book also contributed to the development of collections research in the natural sciences, and the history of collections and of museums.

We provide a complete description of one of the oldest plesiosaurians, Stratesaurus taylori from the earliest Hettangian of the United Kingdom. At least 25 apomorphies distinguish S. taylori from the sympatric Thalassiodracon hawkinsii, to which all three specimens of S. taylori were originally referred. Several features of the skull of S. taylori suggest specialization on small prey items, or sieve feeding. In particular, it has anteriorly inclined premaxillary and mesial maxillary teeth and an only weakly heterodont maxillary dentition. This indicates niche partitioning among sympatric small-bodied plesiosaurians: T. hawkinsii has a pronouncedly heterodont dentition. With a body length estimated around 2 m, S. taylori is one of the smallest plesiosaurians, comparable to T. hawkinsii. Our anatomical review of S. taylori suggests difficulty determining its precise phylogenetic affinities. This is consistent with a general lack of phylogenetic resolution among earliest Jurassic plesiosaurians, which may result from missing data on their Triassic ancestry. However, due to its plesiomorphic morphology and well-characterized anatomy, we recommend S. taylori as an ingroup representative of Plesiosauria for future cladistic analyses of Triassic sauropterygians.

The authors of an anonymous article on Mary Anning (1799-1847), published in Chambers's journal in 1857, are identified to allow the article to be fully evaluated for the first time. Payment was made to the natural-history writer Frank Buckland (1826-1880). However, he incorporated much material from the books of his friend George Roberts (c. 1804-1860), Lyme Regis historian and schoolmaster, and from, most probably, a manuscript memoir by his father, the geologist William Buckland (1784-1856), recalling the day of the 1800 lightning strike on a group including Anning. This throws new light on their networking, William Buckland's dementia, and George Roberts's activities, including his original observation of the resting-site fidelity of limpets (Patella) and his final years.