Prehistoric Life Prehistoric Secrets in Stone The Earliest Fossils The Silurian Reef Trilobites Fish The Coal Forests Early Reptiles and Amphibians Sea Reptiles Flying Reptiles The Teeming Seas Hunting Dinosaurs Biggest Dinosaurs Two-Footed Plant Eaters Plated and Armoured Dinosaurs Horned Dinosaurs The Mammal Age Dawns Grassland Mammals The Ice Age

Choose a Page:*Sea Reptiles*PlesiosaurMosasaursIchthyosaur BackbonesBaby IchthyosaurIchthyosaur JawsMosasaurusTooth Marks Sea Reptiles The reptiles not only dominated the land, but some even returned to live in the sea. In the Triassic and Jurassic periods, two important groups of marine reptiles, the plesiosaurs and the ichthyosaurs, evolved. These reptiles were well adapted to a seagoing life with their streamlined shape and paddle-like limbs. They existed mainly on a diet of fish and ammonites but often fed on one another. (A) FISHLIKE REPTILES Ichthyosaurs were the most fishlike reptiles. Ichthyosaurus looked somewhat like a shark or even a dolphin. (B) LONG NECKS Elasmosaurs, such as Cryptoclidus, were long-necked plesiosaurs. (C) SHORT NECKS Pliosaurs, such as Peloneustes, were short-necked, big-headed, whalelike plesiosaurs.   Previous: Back Book: Prehistoric Life Section: Prehistoric Chapter: Sea Reptiles