Gronausaurus

Sorry for my absence during the last days, I had to work for the next exhibition of our class, hold a lecture about the european garden and work on this, a new plesiosaur from the early cretaceous of germany. The fossil laid untouched in a drawer for more than 100 years until the plesiosaur spcialist Oliver Hampe take a closer look at the specimen. He found some automorphies which enable him to create the new species Gronausaurus wegneri (named after the city where it was found, Gronau, and the paleontologist who dig it out, Thomas Wegner).
Because I know the curator of the paleontological collection of the Geomuseum Münster (Hi Markus) where the fossil slept the last years I was able to get a few additional informations about the animal. He was also kinf enough to send my first try to Dr. Hampe so both could gave me advices to make it better. I made a small model of the animal, mostly based on Brancasaurus, the sister taxon (pics soon in the scraps folder). Than I made some photos of the model from different angles and begin finally to draw. Well, here is the result. I must say that I'm not a specialist for plesiosaurs and a few features will maybe change later but it's te first time I used a maquette to get a better picture of my subject of interest and from this side I'm very satisfied.

Edit: Beside the plesiosaurs the lagerstätte is also known for a turtle a crocodile teeth, various sharks and many fishes, I illustrate the G. wegneri here together with a Hybodus, which was maybe the second top predator of the brackish enviroment where the animals died