Callawayasaurus
''Callawayasaurus'' is a genus of plesiosaur from the family Elasmosauridae. When the holotype was first described by Samuel Paul Welles in 1962, it was described as ''Alzadasaurus colombiensis'' before being moved into its current genus by Kenneth Carpenter in 1999.Carpenter, K. 1999. "Revision of North American elasmosaurs from the Cretaceous of the Western Interior". ''Paludicola'' 2(2):148-173. Etymology ''Callawayasaurus'' is named in honor of the paleontologist Jack M. Callaway, editor of ''Ancient Marine Reptiles'' who, as Carpenter put it, "in his brief career as a vertebrate paleontologist, did much to improve our understanding of marine reptiles." The familiar suffix, ''-saurus'' comes from the Greek ' (), meaning "lizard" or "reptile." Description ''Callawayasaurus'' was a large plesiosaur, with a skull length of , body length of and body mass of . The nares of ''Callawayasaurus'' are elongated and positioned over the maxilla, which has 3-5 teeth. The neck con ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Elasmosauridae
Elasmosauridae is an extinct family of plesiosaurs, often called elasmosaurs. They had the longest necks of the plesiosaurs and existed from the Hauterivian to the Maastrichtian stages of the Cretaceous, and represented one of the two groups of plesiosaurs present at the end of the Cretaceous alongside Polycotylidae. Their diet mainly consisted of crustaceans and molluscs. Description The earliest elasmosaurids were mid-sized, about . In the Late Cretaceous, elasmosaurids grew as large as , such as '' Styxosaurus'', ''Albertonectes'', and '' Thalassomedon''. Their necks were the longest of all the plesiosaurs, with anywhere between 32 and 76 (''Albertonectes'') cervical vertebrae. They weighed up to several tons. Classification Early three-family classification Though Cope had originally recognized ''Elasmosaurus'' as a plesiosaur, in an 1869 paper he placed it, with ''Cimoliasaurus'' and ''Crymocetus'', in a new order of sauropterygian reptiles. He named the group Streptos ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Plesiosaur
The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, ''plesios'', meaning "near to" and ''sauros'', meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period, possibly in the Rhaetian stage, about 203 million years ago. They became especially common during the Jurassic Period, thriving until their disappearance due to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago. They had a worldwide oceanic distribution, and some species at least partly inhabited freshwater environments. Plesiosaurs were among the first fossil reptiles discovered. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists realised how distinctive their build was and they were named as a separate order in 1835. The first plesiosaurian genus, the eponymous ''Plesiosaurus'', was named in 1821. Since then, more than a hundred valid ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

1999 In Paleontology
Flora Ferns and fern allies Cycads Angiosperms Arthropods Insects Mollusca Newly named bivalves Fish Newly named actinopterygii ("ray-finned fish") Archosauromorphs * Ornithomimid gastroliths documented.Kobayashi et al. (1999). Sanders, Manley, and Carpenter (2001), "Table 12.1" page 167. Newly named dinosauriforms Newly named dinosaurs Data courtesy of George Olshevsky's dinosaur genera list. Newly named birds Newly named pterosaurs Lepidosauromorphs Newly named plesiosaurs Newly named scincomorphans References {{commons category, 1999 in paleontology 1990s in paleontology Paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Terminonatator
''Terminonatator'' (meaning "last swimmer") is a genus of elasmosauridae, elasmosaurid plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is known from a skull and partial skeleton from a young adult, found in the Campanian-age Bearpaw Formation near Notukeu Creek in Ponteix. ''Terminonatator'' is currently one of the youngest plesiosaurs from the Western Interior Seaway. Description ''Terminonatator'' is holotype, based on Royal Saskatchewan Museum, RSM P2414.1, a skull and partially articulated incomplete skeleton found high in the Bearpaw Formation. Tamaki Sato, who named and described the specimen in 2003 in paleontology, 2003, used the genus name to emphasize its lateness in the fossil record, and the species epithet ''ponteixensis'' for Ponteix. Only one species has been described: the type species ''T. ponteixensis''. RSM P2414.1 appears to represent an adult, because the vertebral arch, neural arches are fused to their vertebrae, although incomplete fus ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Zygapophysial Joint
The facet joints (or zygapophysial joints, zygapophyseal, apophyseal, or Z-joints) are a set of synovial joint, synovial, plane joints between the articular processes of two adjacent vertebrae. There are two facet joints in each functional spinal unit, spinal motion segment and each facet joint is innervated by the Meningeal branches of spinal nerve, recurrent meningeal nerves. Innervation Innervation to the facet joints vary between segments of the spinal, but they are generally innervated by medial branch nerves that come off the dorsal rami. It is thought that these nerves are for primary sensory input, though there is some evidence that they have some motor input local musculature. Within the cervical spine, most joints are innervated by the medial branch nerve (a branch of the dorsal rami) from the same levels. In other words, the facet joint between C4 and C5 vertebral segments is innervated by the C4 and C5 medial branch nerves. However, there are two exceptions: # The ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Skeleton
A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body, and the hydroskeleton, a flexible internal skeleton supported by fluid pressure. Vertebrates are animals with a vertebral column, and their skeletons are typically composed of bone and cartilage. Invertebrates are animals that lack a vertebral column. The skeletons of invertebrates vary, including hard exoskeleton shells, plated endoskeletons, or Sponge spicule, spicules. Cartilage is a rigid connective tissue that is found in the skeletal systems of vertebrates and invertebrates. Etymology The term ''skeleton'' comes . ''Sceleton'' is an archaic form of the word. Classification Skeletons can be defined by several attributes. Solid skeletons consist of hard substances, such as bone, cartilage, or cuticle. These can be further ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, where holotype and isotypes are often pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same gathering. A holotype is not necessarily "typ ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Biological Specimen
A biological specimen (also called a biospecimen) is a biological laboratory specimen held by a biorepository for research. Such a specimen would be taken by sampling so as to be representative of any other specimen taken from the source of the specimen. When biological specimens are stored, ideally they remain equivalent to freshly-collected specimens for the purposes of research. Human biological specimens are stored in a type of biorepository called a biobank, and the science of preserving biological specimens is most active in the field of biobanking. Quality control Setting broad standards for quality of biological specimens was initially an underdeveloped aspect of biobank growth. There is currently discussion on what standards should be in place and who should manage those standards. Since many organizations set their own standards and since biobanks are necessarily used by multiple organizations and typically are driven towards expansion, the harmonization of standard ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Early Cretaceous
The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145  Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Proposals for the exact age of the Barremian-Aptian boundary ranged from 126 to 117 Ma until recently (as of 2019), but based on drillholes in Svalbard the defining early Aptian Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a (OAE1a) was carbon isotope dated to 123.1±0.3 Ma, limiting the possible range for the boundary to c. 122–121 Ma. There is a possible link between this anoxic event and a series of Early Cretaceous large igneous provinces (LIP). The Ontong Java-Manihiki-Hikurangi large igneous province, emplaced in the South Pacific at c. 120 Ma, is by far the largest LIP in Earth's history. The Ontong Java Plateau today covers an area of 1,860,000 km2. In the Indian Ocean another LIP began to form at c. 120 Ma, the Kerguelen P ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Sexual Dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most animals and some plants. Differences may include secondary sex characteristics, size, weight, colour, markings, or behavioural or cognitive traits. These differences may be subtle or exaggerated and may be subjected to sexual selection and natural selection. The opposite of dimorphism is ''monomorphism'', which is when both biological sexes are phenotypically indistinguishable from each other. Overview Ornamentation and coloration Common and easily identified types of dimorphism consist of ornamentation and coloration, though not always apparent. A difference in coloration of sexes within a given species is called sexual dichromatism, which is commonly seen in many species of birds and reptiles. Sexual selection leads to the exaggerated dim ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Fossils
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Paleontology is the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years old to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before print. The observation in the 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed scientists to quantitatively measure the absolute ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Paja Formation
Paja may refer to: * Paja, Iran, a village in Sari County * Paja (given name), a Serbian masculine name * Paja (surname) * Paja Formation, geologic formation in Colombia * Paja Brava :''Paja Brava is also used in Spanish speaking countries to refer to different types of grass'' Paja Brava is a Bolivian musical group. The band has had many different musicians that have participated over the years. The first recording was a sel ...