''Cimoliasaurus'' was a

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

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

(

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian () is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the latest age (uppermost stage) of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series, the Cretaceous Period or System, and of the Mesozoic Era or Erathem. It spanned the interval from ...

) of

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. It grew up to long and weighed up to .

Etymology

The name is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, meaning "white chalk", and , meaning "lizard", in reference to the fact that the deposits in which it was found bear a superficial resemblance to the chalk deposits of the Western Interior Seaway.

Taxonomic history

The name ''Cimoliasaurus magnus'' was coined by

Joseph Leidy Joseph Mellick Leidy (September 9, 1823 – April 30, 1891) was an American paleontologist, parasitologist and anatomist. Leidy was professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, later was a professor of natural history at Swarthmore ...

for ANSP 9235, one anterior and 12 posterior

cervical vertebra In tetrapods, cervical vertebrae (singular: vertebra) are the vertebrae of the neck, immediately below the skull. Truncal vertebrae (divided into thoracic and lumbar vertebrae in mammals) lie caudal (toward the tail) of cervical vertebrae. In sau ...

e collected in Maastrichtian-aged

greensand Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called ''glauconies'' and c ...

deposits in Burlington County,

. In his catalogue of

and

ichthyosaur Ichthyosaurs (Ancient Greek for "fish lizard" – and ) are large extinct marine reptiles. Ichthyosaurs belong to the order known as Ichthyosauria or Ichthyopterygia ('fish flippers' – a designation introduced by Sir Richard Owen in 1842, altho ...

specimens preserved in the NHM, the British zoologist

Richard Lydekker Richard Lydekker (; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history. Biography Richard Lydekker was born at Tavistock Square in London. His father was Gerard Wolfe Lydekker, ...

referred several Jurassic and Cretaceous plesiosaur species to ''Cimoliasaurus'', including the new species ''C. richardsoni'' (now considered a species of ''

Cryptoclidus ''Cryptoclidus'' ( ) is a genus of plesiosaur reptile from the Middle Jurassic Period (geology), period of England, France, and Cuba. Discovery ''Cryptoclidus'' was a plesiosaur whose specimens include adult and juvenile skeletons, and remai ...

'') and ''C. cantabrigiensis'', as well as ''

Colymbosaurus ''Colymbosaurus'' is a genus of cryptoclidid plesiosaur from the Late Jurassic (Callovian-Tithonian) of the UK and Svalbard, Norway. There are two currently recognized species, ''C. megadeirus'' and ''C. svalbardensis''. Both species are relati ...

'' and a number of previously described species from the

Cambridge Greensand The Cambridge Greensand is a geological unit in England whose strata are earliest Cenomanian in age. It lies above the erosive contact between the Gault Formation and the Chalk Group in the vicinity of Cambridgeshire, and technically forms the low ...

and

Chalk Group The Chalk Group (often just called the Chalk) is the lithostratigraphic unit (a certain number of rock strata) which contains the Upper Cretaceous limestone succession in southern and eastern England. The same or similar rock sequences occur acr ...

. Nowadays, ''Cimoliasaurus'' is now recognized as being a derived

elasmosaurid 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 p ...

, effectively making the family name Cimoliasauridae Delair, 1959 a junior synonym of Elasmosauridae.

Misassigned nominal species

* ''Cimoliasaurus laramiensis'' Knight, 1900, now ''

Tatenectes ''Tatenectes'' is a genus of cryptoclidid plesiosaur known from the Upper Jurassic of Wyoming. Its remains were recovered from the Redwater Shale Member of the Sundance Formation, and initially described as a new species of '' Cimoliosaurus ...

'' * ''Cimoliasaurus richardsoni'' Lydekker, 1889, now '' Cryptoclidus richardsoni'' * ''Cimoliasaurus valdensis'' Lydekker, 1889, now ''

Hastanectes ''Hastanectes'' is an extinct genus of a plesiosaurian with possible pliosaurid affinities known from the Early Cretaceous Wadhurst Clay Formation (Valanginian stage) of the United Kingdom. It contains a single species, ''Hastanectes valdensis'', ...

'' * ''Cimoliasaurus teplicensis'' Fritsch, 1906 (nomen dubium)Fritsch, A. (1906). Über neue Saurierfunde in der Kreideformation Böhmens. ''Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Classe Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche'', 1906(33): 1–6.

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20080414142638/http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/220Lepidosauromorpha/220.820.html#Cimoliasaurus {{Taxonbar, from=Q5120155 Late Cretaceous plesiosaurs of North America Elasmosaurids Fossil taxa described in 1851 Taxa named by Joseph Leidy Sauropterygian genera

Etymology

Taxonomic history

Misassigned nominal species

See also

References

External links