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Historically, there have been many differing interpretations of the posture of the neck and the habit of plesiosaurs (see figure below) . However, the function of the long plesiosaur neck is still unresolved (Martill et al. 1994), although most likely is served as a mechanism of approaching prey, say schools of fish, without being detected (Massare, 1988).
A selection of historical plesiosaur restorations (from Zarnik, 1925)
Contrary to early work (Zarnik, 1925, see figure below), the neck did not have the flexibility to coil up and strike prey as do some snakes and pleurodiran turtles (Pough et al. 1996). The neck was actually inflexible (Storrs, 1993), so plesiosaurs could also not adopt the often depicted swan-like pose.
Proposed neck flexibility in P. guilelmiimperatoris From Zarnik, 1925. The degree of flexion between successive vertebrae was actually much less than implied here.