''Borealonectes'' is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
of
rhomaleosaurid
Rhomaleosauridae is a family of plesiosaurs from the Earliest Jurassic to the latest Middle Jurassic ( Hettangian to Callovian stages) of Europe, North America, South America and possibly Asia. Most rhomaleosaurids are known from England, man ...
pliosauroid, a type of
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 ...
. Its fossils were found in the
Callovian-age (
Middle Jurassic
The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare, but geological formations co ...
, about 165-161 million years ago)
Hiccles Cove Formation of
Melville Island,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, one of the islands in the
Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It is
based on a skull, neck
vertebra
The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic ...
e, and the right forelimb of one individual. Named in 2008 by Sato and Wu, ''Borealonectes'' is one of the few plesiosaurs known from the
Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...
of
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, and the first
marine reptile
Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment.
The earliest marine reptile mesosaurus (not to be confused with mosasaurus), arose in the Permian period during the ...
from the Canadian Arctic with a well-preserved skull. The
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...
is ''B. russelli.''
See also
*
Timeline of plesiosaur research
This timeline of plesiosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, taxonomic revisions, and cultural portrayals of plesiosaurs, an order of marine reptiles that flourished duri ...
*
List of plesiosaur genera
This list of plesiosaurs is a comprehensive listing of all genera that have ever been included in the order Plesiosauria, excluding purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but also genera that are now considered inv ...
References
Middle Jurassic plesiosaurs
Middle Jurassic reptiles of North America
Prehistory of the Arctic
Jurassic plesiosaurs of North America
Fossil taxa described in 2008
Sauropterygian genera
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