Did a Japanese Fishing Trawler catch a Plesiosaur?

In 1977, a creature was caught off the coast of New Zealand which has raised a bit of controversy on whether or not all dinosaurs are really extinct.

"On April 25, 1977, the Japanese fishing ship Zuiyo Maru, trawling for mackerel off the coast of New Zealand, snagged a rotting corpse at a depth of 900 feet and hauled in the remains of a beast that no one anywhere seemed to be able to identify.

"It's not a fish, whale, or any other mammal," said Professor Yoshinori Imaizumi of Japan's National Science Museum, in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper story that broke the news to the world. "It's a reptile, and the sketch looks very like a plesiosaur. This was a precious and important discovery for human beings. It seems to show that these animals are not extinct after all." See "What was the New Zealand Monster?"

There is some reason now to believe that this was not a plesiosaur, but in fact was a rotting basking shark. At least the creationist group "Answers in Genesis" has decided to take the skeptical view of this:

"This carcass was almost certainly a rotting basking shark, since their gills and jaws rot rapidly and fall off, leaving the typical small "neck" with the head. This has been shown by similar specimens washed up on beaches. Also, detailed anatomical and biochemical studies of the Zuiyo-maru carcass show that it could not have been a plesiosaur." See "Let Rotting Sharks Lie"

It speaks well for creationists when they don't try to present for argument data that is not really there - I only wish the evolutionist would do likewise!

Though highly debatable, this may be evidence that some dinosaurs still exist!