''Arminisaurus'' (meaning "lizard of

Arminius Arminius ( 18/17 BC – 21 AD) was a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe who is best known for commanding an alliance of Germanic tribes at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, in which three Roman legions under the command of ge ...

") is a genus of

pliosaurid Pliosauridae is a family of plesiosaurian marine reptiles from the Latest Triassic to the early Late Cretaceous ( Rhaetian to Turonian stages) of Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The family is more inclusive than the archetypa ...

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 ...

that lived during the

Lower Jurassic The Early Jurassic Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, 201.3 Ma ...

in present-day

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. With ''

Westphaliasaurus ''Westphaliasaurus'' is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from Lower Jurassic (Pliensbachian stage) deposits of Westphalia, northwestern Germany. It is known from a nearly complete and articulated skeleton missing the skull and about 38% of the uppe ...

'' and '' Cryonectes'', ''Arminisaurus'' is only the third

ian

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

that was described from the

Pliensbachian The Pliensbachian is an age of the geologic timescale and stage in the stratigraphic column. It is part of the Early or Lower Jurassic Epoch or Series and spans the time between 190.8 ± 1.5 Ma and 182.7 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Plien ...

stage. The

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 ...

and only known specimen is a fragmentary skeleton (about 40 percent complete), comprising an incomplete lower jaw, teeth, vertebrae and elements from the pectoral girdle and the paddles. The animal had an estimated body length of . Arminisaurus_schuberti_lower_jaw

Discovery and naming

The holotype was discovered in the early 1980s by the

Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German States of Germany, state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germa ...

-based

fossil 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 ...

collector Lothar Schulz in the now abandoned clay pit Beukenhorst II, located in the

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region (''Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and the ...

district of Jöllenbeck. The specimen was later given to amateur

palaeontologist 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 ...

Siegfried Schubert who transferred it to the

Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld The Natural History Museum in Bielefeld (german: Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld) is a natural history museum in the city of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2003, it was given the additional name namu, which stands for the German w ...

in 2015 ( accession number: NAMU ES/jl 36052). Arminisaurus_schuberti_scapula

''Arminisaurus schuberti'' was described in 2018 by Sven Sachs and Benjamin Kear. The generic name ''Arminisaurus'' refers to

, chieftain of the

Cherusci The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germany in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered themsel ...

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

who defeated three

Roman legion The Roman legion ( la, legiō, ) was the largest military unit of the Roman army, composed of 5,200 infantry and 300 equites (cavalry) in the period of the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC) and of 5,600 infantry and 200 auxilia in the period of ...

s in the

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, described as the Varian Disaster () by Ancient Rome, Roman historians, took place at modern Kalkriese in AD 9, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius ...

in 9 AD and is a homage to the region where the specimen was found. The species name ''schuberti'' honours Siegfried Schubert for his contributions (including numerous scientific publications), enhancing the knowledge of the geology of the

region.

Classification

A cladistic analysis found ''Arminisaurus schuberti'' to be a member of the family

Pliosauridae Pliosauridae is a family of plesiosaurian marine reptiles from the Latest Triassic to the early Late Cretaceous ( Rhaetian to Turonian stages) of Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The family is more inclusive than the archetypa ...

, a globally distributed plesiosaurian clade that is known from the Early Jurassic to the early Late Cretaceous. ''Arminisaurus'' was a basal

pliosaur Pliosauroidea is an extinct clade of plesiosaurs, known from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous. They are best known for the subclade Thalassophonea, which contained crocodile-like short-necked forms with large heads and massive tooth ...

id and differs from other members of the

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

by a combination of characters found in the mandible, the neck vertebrae and the scapula. These characters are shared with the

ian group Leptocleidia that occurred about 50 million years later in time. The following cladogram by Sachs and Kear in 2017 shows the presumed relationships with related pliosaurids:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q42350370 Pliosaurids Jurassic plesiosaurs Jurassic plesiosaurs of Europe Early Jurassic plesiosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2017 Sauropterygian genera