Basking shark or plesiosaur

Hi all Im referring to the rotting corpse found in Nova Scotia a few years back (see link below)
user.bahnhof.se...

anyway does anyone know how this story ended or was anyone in the area at the time and may have some decent pics of the thing.
I know the DNA pointed towards a Basking shark but there seem to be a few anolomies about the things appearance or is that just the believers making it up??

I'm sure it's a basking shark. I think the confusion comes from a misunderstanding about what a "basking shark" is. It's a really weird shark. The first time I ran accross this Shark or Sea Monster thing was a report from a Japanese fishing boat that pulled something otherworldly out of the water in 1977. When they said it might be a "basking shark" I thought they meant a regular shark who was "basking" in the sun like whales sometimes do and it got stuck and died. Looking at the pictures, I thought, "There's no way that's a shark!" Upon further research, it became clear that the carcasses in question were sharks, just a really big and strange species of shark.

Shark or Sea Monster? Japanese Trawler in 1977

Let Rotting Sharks Lie

Biology of the Basking Shark

Recently beached carcass of a Basking Shark.

I have been reading the same pagees as you but on the Nova Scotia one the guy keeps going on about the eye sockets and the flippers do you think he is blinded by his own obsession?

The 'flippers' are clearly not those of a plesiosaur, as is the skull. Plesiosaurs are descended from land animals, they have solid calcified skeletons, real nostrils, and individial digits (or fingers) contained within a solid fleshy fin. That thing looks like its cartilaginous, doesn't appear to have real nostrils, and the fins, rather than 'looking like we'd expect from wave action causing shredding', look like rotting shark fins, and clearly contain no calcified digits.

A scientist who prefers to remain anonymous for the time being has this to say:

"DFO people should know the elementary fact that no fish has a neck -- the pectoral fins come off the body immediately behind the head in all fish species. The basking shark also has a relatively massive head, five pairs of gills, and small pectoral fins

Bollocks. The carcas resembles perfectly a rotted basking shark carcas.
You can see in this pic
www.porthkerris.com...
that the fins are not directly behind the head, the head IS that small carilagenous case, anyone that is an actual scientist would, if they didn't already know what the animal looks like, try to find out, before making such a ridiculous statement. That, imo, identifies this person as 'not a scientist', and the author of the pages as having either made it up or not having checked his sources adequately.

Cheers for that Nygdan, its funny how these people just wont except the fact although I wish it was a Plesiosaur that would make things a lot more interesting

Sure looks like a dead rotted shark to me. Look at the tone and texture of the meat its definantly a fish. You would think a pleisosaur would have more reptilian or bird like meat. Not that anyone's ever disected a pliesosaur to know, but the logic kinda follows. And those fins scream rotted cartledge, shredded and all.

Here is another picture of a dead basking shark:




So yeah, it most definitely looks like a basking shark to me. But i think we all can agree that it would be alot cooler if it was a Plesiosaur

Yeah it would be nice to see live plesiosaurs at the local aquarium like we keep orcas. Maybe even have a stunt show where they could do flips and give rides to people in the audience for fish or whatever they eat. They could have a cute name and a mascot too.

The carcass is clearly rotted quite a bit, and inferrance is being drawn assuming that the decomposed state is actually the creatures actual shape. The reconstruction diagram looks way off from what actually lies there. You can't just trace the shame, then fill in some details, if you want to find what the creature was, you have to do a reconstruction-esque exercise to accurately plot in all the soft tissue and so on.

I'm never too quick to jump to a conclusion
But this image taken in 1977 seems pretty damning to me
paleo.cc...
If this really is a Plesiosaurus recovered by a Japanese fishing boat
Then we might need to rethink the history we're taught throughout the world about dinosaurs
I'm not an expert but that certainly doesn't look like a shark, I mean come on.
Seems highly probable man and dinosaur have/do co-exist(ed)..
If anybody knows of real logical evidence to debunk this please point me in the right direction
Otherwise I have to say this is pretty amazing!

P.D I was going to make a thread if there wasn't already, but 17 posts doesn't cut it

Originally posted by IrnBruFiend
I'm never too quick to jump to a conclusion
But this image taken in 1977 seems pretty damning to me
paleo.cc...
If this really is a Plesiosaurus recovered by a Japanese fishing boat
Then we might need to rethink the history we're taught throughout the world about dinosaurs
I'm not an expert but that certainly doesn't look like a shark, I mean come on.
Seems highly probable man and dinosaur have/do co-exist(ed)..
If anybody knows of real logical evidence to debunk this please point me in the right direction
Otherwise I have to say this is pretty amazing!

P.D I was going to make a thread if there wasn't already, but 17 posts doesn't cut it

Im a little confused as to why you've posted that link, as that link shows the story that this thread is already debating, and has conclusively (in my eyes) laid this to rest as a basking shark.

You ask for real evidence to debunk it, while...its in this thread already

Whether man and dinosaur really lived side by side is a whole other debate, but Plesiosaurs were not dinosaurs anyway.

Trust me, I'd love for the images to be of a Plesiosaur, and when I first saw one of the photos on what I think was an old cigarette card (or similar) my mind was blown (I was a young kid then) but all the evidence points towards a basking shark. I'd repeat the evidence, but I'd only be repeating whats already been said by posters above.

Yeah I actually tried to delete the post but I wasn't sure how
Hah
Yeah, the picture was intriguing, I guess it's a basking shark
I watched it on a documentary, it didn't seem to mention the possibility that it was a basking shark
I'm sure I read somewhere the Japanese made limited edition stamps after the find as well
So probably got a tad excited, does look like it has huge wings though
Thanks for your reply