How to View Plesiosaurus in 3D
Plesiosaurus 3D Viewer runs an Early Jurassic Plesiosaurus - a marine reptile with a neck far longer than its body, ending in a tiny head - in your browser. Drag to rotate, scroll or pinch to zoom, toggle a 1.8 m person for scale, and click a body part for a fossil-sourced fact.
Open the Plesiosaurus page and take the camera
Open the Plesiosaurus 3D Viewer and wait for the facts panel to fill. When the status line says you can drag, orbit the Plesiosaurus with the pointer and zoom with the scroll wheel or a two-finger pinch. Fullscreen expands the wrapper so the controls stay visible beside the scene.
Use the four Plesiosaurus controls under the canvas
Under the Plesiosaurus canvas, four controls handle view and scale:
- Fullscreen - fills the display while keeping the buttons visible
- Stop rotation / Auto-rotate - freezes or resumes auto-spin
- Idle motion - adds subtle breathing and flipper sway; tap again for Stand still
- Size vs human - shows a 1.8 m person at the honest length ratio used by the viewer (3.5 m, the Natural History Museum-cited figure within the published about 3-5 m range)
Read the Plesiosaurus facts panel and click a body part
The Plesiosaurus facts panel lists length about 3.5 m per the Natural History Museum (Britannica about 4.5 m; EBSCO a 3-5 m range), weight about 90 kg on the more conservative EBSCO-attributed figure (some popular sources cite up to roughly 450 kg for large individuals), the Early Jurassic window about 199 to 175 million years ago (Hettangian-Toarcian), conical unserrated teeth suited to gripping fish and other small marine prey, and naming history - William Conybeare and Henry De la Beche named it in 1821 from fragmentary remains at Lyme Regis, Dorset, England; Mary Anning's near-complete 1823 find at the same cliffs first revealed the true long-necked body plan; a key specimen is held at the Natural History Museum, London (NHMUK PV R.1330). It is a marine reptile in Sauropterygia - not a dinosaur, and a different group from the already-shipped Mosasaurus (Mosasauria). The procedural model uses a long-neck marine branch: short torso, very long slender neck, tiny head, short tail with no vertical fluke, and four broad paddle flippers - a genuine body-plan contrast with Mosasaurus. A short click - not a drag - on head, body, neck, tail, or flipper surfaces a short fossil fact. Skin color is an artistic reconstruction; the model is procedural with no free-licensed Plesiosaurus glTF re-hosted yet. The page does not claim a specific swan-like raised-neck swimming posture - that point is debated among researchers.
What the Plesiosaurus how-to guide is not
The Plesiosaurus how-to guide is a controls walkthrough for the in-browser viewer only - it does not place the model in your room (no AR), does not claim soft-tissue or color accuracy, does not invent one precise length or weight beyond the disclosed ranges, does not claim Plesiosaurus was a dinosaur, does not invent a settled swimming-posture claim, does not invent a glTF credit, and does not invent game score or win states. For the size story see Plesiosaurus size comparison. For trade-offs versus phone AR apps see Plesiosaurus 3D viewer vs AR apps.
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