Plesiosaur Bites

Monstertalk is a new sceptical podcast focussing on all things cryptozoological. The most recent episode (episode 004) delves into the idea that plesiosaurs may still be alive today, lurking in lochs and lakes around the world – the so called Plesiosaur Hypothesis.  I was interviewed as a guest on this episode and took part in a long discussion about plesiosaur palaeobiology. I’ll admit that I was hesitant to be interviewed at first because I don’t want to get too bogged down or involved in the living plesiosaurs ‘debate’.

The word debate goes into inverted commas because very few cryptozoologists really take the plesiosaur hypothesis seriously, any discussion on the topic is less of a debate and more of a debunk. The plesiosaur hypothesis is really only pushed by 1. the occasional fundamentalist creationist under the (false) impression that a living plesiosaur would somehow discredit evolution (which it obviously wouldn’t), and 2. the media. The media’s fascination with Nessie is especially irksome, no plesiosaur-based science news story in the popular press is self explanatory or interesting enough, it seems, without the inevitable comparison with a fabled creature that doesn’t look like a plesiosaur anyway. This perpetuates the public’s only frame of reference for plesiosaurs as Nessie and does nothing for palaeontology and even less for science education.

It was partly with this in mind that I decided to accept the invitation to be interviewed on Monstertalk, but moreover it was an excellent opportunity  to talk about plesiosaur palaeontology and the real mysteries surrounding these fascinating creatures. Far more interesting than those mythical lake monsters I think, and I hope that’s how the podcast came across. I enjoyed the experience although I still haven’t had the courage to listen to myself twittering on. This episode is available to download as a free MP3 here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/skeptic/004_Monstertalk.mp3 and the show notes are here: http://www.skeptic.com/podcasts/monstertalk/09/08/24/. I highly recommend listening to the other episodes too. Enjoy!