![Eretmosaurus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Eretmosaurus.jpg)
''Eretmosaurus'' is an
extinct genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
plesiosaur.
Taxonomic history
''Eretmosaurus'' was coined by
Harry Govier Seeley
Harry Govier Seeley (18 February 1839 – 8 January 1909) was a British paleontologist.
Early life
Seeley was born in London on 18 February 1839, the second son of Richard Hovill Seeley, a goldsmith, and his second wife Mary Govier. When his fat ...
for ''Plesiosaurus rugosus'' Owen, 1840.
Richard Owen had coined the name ''P. rugosus'' for numerous vertebrae from the Early Jurassic
Blue Lias
The Blue Lias is a geological formation in southern, eastern and western England and parts of South Wales, part of the Lias Group. The Blue Lias consists of a sequence of limestone and shale layers, laid down in latest Triassic and early Jurassi ...
of
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
and other unspecified locations in the UK. Later, Owen described a headless skeleton (NHMUK 14435) that he assigned to ''P. rugosus'',
[R. Owen. 1865. A monograph of the fossil Reptilia of the Liassic formations. Part I, Sauropterygia. Palaeontographical Society Monographs 17(75):1-40] and Seeley used NHMUK 14435 as the basis for coining a new genus for this species.
See also
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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 in ...
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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 dur ...
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List of plesiosaurs
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
Plesiosauroids
Early Jurassic plesiosaurs of Europe
Jurassic England
Fossil taxa described in 1874
Taxa named by Harry Seeley
Sauropterygian genera
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