How to Use plesiosaur in a Sentence

plesiosaur

noun
  • This includes Ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and even the Megalodon – the largest shark known to man.
    — Matthew Cox, Cincinnati.com, 13 Mar. 2020
  • The plesiosaur to be displayed will be positioned by a mosasaur specimen.
    — Jack Dura, The Seattle Times, 15 Jan. 2018
  • Millions of years ago, when dinosaurs dominated the land, leviathans known as plesiosaurs prowled the oceans.
    — Nicholas St. Fleur, New York Times, 29 Aug. 2017
  • The bones hint at the plesiosaur living and feeding in freshwater routinely.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 28 July 2022
  • Dinosaur fans know that late Cretaceous-era waters were ruled by sharp-toothed sharks and sea reptiles known as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.
    — CBS News, 24 Apr. 2026
  • Dinosaur fans know that late Cretaceous-era waters were ruled by sharp-toothed sharks and sea reptiles known as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.
    — ABC News, 23 Apr. 2026
  • Another part was that Nessie most closely resembles the plesiosaur.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 28 July 2022
  • The Kansas plesiosaur finally fills in that longstanding gap.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 11 Aug. 2011
  • Plesiosaurs devoured all manner of marine life including squid and other plesiosaurs.
    — Mike Snider, USA Today, 6 Aug. 2025
  • But the possibility of a modern-day plesiosaur being seen in rivers wasn’t plausible.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 28 July 2022
  • The creature's appearance has been described as resembling a plesiosaur, an ancient sea monster that died out with the dinosaurs.
    — Fox News, 10 July 2018
  • During the Cretaceous, plesiosaurs grew longer necks and bodies and generally got much longer.
    — Sara Novak, Discover Magazine, 11 Dec. 2024
  • Elasmosaurs make up a family of the plesiosaurs, which represent some of the largest sea creatures of the Cretaceous.
    — National Geographic, 7 June 2019
  • But until now, despite hundreds of fossils and over 200 years of collection, no one had found a pregnant plesiosaur.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 11 Aug. 2011
  • The plesiosaurs - a group of marine reptiles including the pliosaurs - were thought to feed primarily on large marine animals and fish.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 16 June 2017
  • That has long been one of paleontology’s enduring questions about the plesiosaur.
    — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 6 Feb. 2025
  • These massive mollusks may even have eaten large aquatic reptiles like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, which were themselves believed to be among the main marine predators of the time.
    — Adam England, PEOPLE, 24 Apr. 2026
  • Of course, many still hold out hope for the possibility of a somehow still undiscovered pod of plesiosaurs calling Loch Ness home.
    — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 24 Aug. 2023
  • Large amounts of plankton-eating fish died off as a result, leaving mosasaurs and plesiosaurs to face eventual extinction due to a shortage of nourishment.
    — Jack Knudson, Discover Magazine, 22 Dec. 2023
  • The plesiosaur — an aquatic dinosaur once thought to exclusively reside in saltwater — is now believed to have spent much of its time in freshwater, according to a new study.
    — Tori B. Powell, CBS News, 13 Aug. 2022
  • Also part of Sotheby’s auction was a fossil of a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that lived in the Jurassic Period.
    — David Chiu, Peoplemag, 19 Sep. 2023
  • These coiled, shelled relatives of squid and octopuses were abundant predators, hunting in the same waters as fish, turtles, sharks and extinct marine reptiles called plesiosaurs.
    — Torben Rick, The Conversation, 18 June 2026
  • These octopuses shared the oceans with giant marine reptiles like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs — some reaching up to 50 feet long — as well as sharks comparable to modern great whites.
    — Ryan Brennan april 24, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 24 Apr. 2026
  • To be abundantly clear, Gemmell isn’t betting on the possibility of finding a plesiosaur in Loch Ness.
    — Jason Bittel, Smithsonian, 25 Apr. 2017
  • These octopuses shared their environment with mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, marine reptiles that grew up to 50 feet, and sharks comparable in size to modern great whites.
    — Ryan Brennan, Miami Herald, 24 Apr. 2026
  • Fossil evidence strongly suggests that, like nonavian dinosaurs, plesiosaurs went extinct no later than 66 million years ago.
    — Michael Greshko, National Geographic, 23 May 2018
  • The legend of the Loch Ness monster has commonly been attributed to a plesiosaur that somehow managed to survive the mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs.
    — Fox News, 6 Sep. 2019
  • This has only added to the conviction that Nessie is either some surviving example of plesiosaur or a heretofore unknown species descended from those early dinosaurs.
    — Stephen C. George, Discover Magazine, 23 Jan. 2024
  • Many ideas about what type of creature could be under Loch Ness’s surface have been floated over the years, ranging from an extinct prehistoric reptile called a plesiosaur to swimming circus elephants.
    — Justine McDaniel, Washington Post, 5 Aug. 2023
  • Locals in Morocco found fossils belonging to the plesiosaur in a 100-million-year-old freshwater river system.
    — Saleen Martin, USA TODAY, 2 Aug. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'plesiosaur.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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