Sixth Grade
Worksheets
Elasmosaurus
Elasmosaurus (EE-lazz-moe-SAWR-us) lived around 80 million years ago in the Cretaceous period. It was not a dinosaur. It swam in the sea, but it wasn't a fish. Although it lived in water, it needed to come to the surface to breathe air. It wasn't a mammal like dolphins and whales, either. It was a type of reptile called a plesiosaur (PLEE-zee-oh-SAWR).
Elasmosaurus was 45 feet long and weighed about 4,000 pounds! Its neck was longer than its body and tail combined. It had a fat body, a short, thick tail, and a very long, thin neck. Its neck had 72 vertebrae (bones) - more than any other animal we know of. It had four paddle-like flippers that it used to swim through the water. Someone once described it as "a snake strung through .....
