''Nothosaurus'' ("false lizard", from the Ancient Greek (), "illegitimate", and (), "lizard") is an extinct genus of

sauropterygia Sauropterygia ("lizard flippers") is an extinct taxon of diverse, aquatic reptiles that developed from terrestrial ancestors soon after the end-Permian extinction and flourished during the Triassic before all except for the Plesiosauria became ...

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

from the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

period, approximately 240–210 million years ago, with fossils being distributed from

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It is the best known member of the

nothosaur Nothosaurs (order Nothosauroidea) were Triassic marine sauropterygian reptiles that may have lived like seals of today, catching food in water but coming ashore on rocks and beaches. They averaged about in length, with a long body and tail.F. ...

order.

Description

''Nothosaurus'' was a semi-

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

ic animal which probably had a lifestyle similar to that of today's

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

s. It was about , with long, webbed toes and possibly a fin on its tail. However, some species such as ''N. zhangi'' and ''N. giganteus'' were larger, up to . When swimming, ''Nothosaurus'' would use its tail, legs, and webbed feet to propel and steer it through the water. The skull was broad and flat, with long jaws, lined with needle

teeth A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...

, it probably caught fish and other marine creatures. Trackways attributed, partly by process of elimination, to a nothosaur, that were reported from

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

, China in June 2014, were interpreted as the paddle impressions left as the animals dug into soft seabed with rowing motions of their paddles, churning up hidden benthic creatures that they snapped up.(LiveScience) Tia Ghose, "Ancient long-necked 'sea monsters' rowed their way to prey", reporting the scientific article published in ''Nature Communications'' 11 June 2014: accessed 28 November 2014.
/ref> Once caught, few animals would be able to shake themselves free from the mouth of ''Nothosaurus''. In many respects its body structure resembled that of the much later

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 ...

s, but it was not as well adapted to an aquatic environment. It is thought that one branch of the nothosaurs may have evolved into

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 toot ...

s such as ''

Liopleurodon ''Liopleurodon'' (; meaning 'smooth-sided teeth') is an extinct genus of large, carnivorous marine reptile belonging to the Thalassophonea, a clade of short-necked pliosaurid plesiosaurs. ''Liopleurodon'' lived from the Callovian Stage of the Mi ...

'', a short-necked plesiosaur that grew up to , and the long-necked ''

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 ...

'', a fish eater with a neck as long as .

Species

There are nearly a dozen known species of ''Nothosaurus''. The type species is ''N. mirabilis'', named in 1834 from the Germanic

Muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; french: calcaire coquillier) is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 million ye ...

. Other species include ''N. giganteus'' (previously known as ''Paranothosaurus'') from

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population ...

, Germany; ''N. juvenilis'', also from Germany; ''N. edingerae'' from the Upper Muschelkalk and Lower

Keuper The Keuper is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Keuper consists of dolomite, shales or claystones and evaporites that were deposited during the Middle and Late ...

; ''N. haasi'' and ''N. tchernovi'' from Makhtesh Ramon,

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

; ''N. cymatosauroides'' from the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Muschelkalk; ''N. jagisteus'' from the Upper Muschelkalk of

Hohenlohe The House of Hohenlohe () is a German princely dynasty. It ruled an immediate territory within the Holy Roman Empire which was divided between several branches. The Hohenlohes became imperial counts in 1450. The county was divided numerous time ...

, Germany; and ''N. youngi'', ''N. yangjuanensis'' (and its junior synonym ''N. rostellatus'') and the recently named ''N. zhangi'' from

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

. Several species have been described from the Lower Muschelkalk in

Winterswijk Winterswijk (; also known as ''Winterswiek'' or ''Wenters'') is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands. It has a population of and is situated in the Achterhoek, which lies in the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland in th ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, including ''N. marchicus'' (and its

junior synonym The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...

''N. winterswijkensis'') and ''N. winkelhorsti''. Recently, the long considered lost type material of ''N. schimperi'' Meyer, 1842 from the Lower Muschelkalk of Soultz-les-Bains, Alsace, France, has been rediscovered and a lectotype has been designated. Klein and Albers (2009) conducted a

phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

, but did not test the

monophyly In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic grou ...

of ''Nothosaurus'', as other nothosaurids were not included in their analysis. Several other species have been named but are now generally considered invalid. One such species, ''N. procerus'', is now considered a

junior subjective synonym The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linn ...

of ''N. marchicus''. Other species now considered junior synonyms of ''N. marchicus'' include ''N. crassus'', ''N. oldenburgi'', ''N. raabi'', ''N. schroderi'', ''N. venustus'' and the recently named ''N. winterswijkensis''. Junior synonyms of ''N. giganteus'', the second largest ''Nothosaurus'' species, include ''N. andriani'', ''N. angustifronis'', ''N. aduncidens'', ''N. baruthicus'' and ''N. chelydrops''. A species level

of Nothosauridae was performed by Liu ''et al.'' (2014), and included all known valid species of the family and ''Nothosaurus'' apart from '' Lariosaurus stensioi'' (type of ''Micronothosaurus''), ''Nothosaurus cymatosauroides'', and '' Ceresiosaurus lanzi''. Due to the inclusion of other nothosaurids other than ''Nothosaurus'', the

of ''Nothosaurus'' was tested for the first time. The analysis found both ''

Lariosaurus ''Lariosaurus'' is an extinct genus of nothosaurid from the Middle Triassic (late Anisian to late Ladinian stage) of central and western Europe and China. With a length of just , it was one of the smallest known nothosaurs. First discovered at Pe ...

'' and ''Nothosaurus'' to be

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of converg ...

in regard to each other and all the other genera of the family, making a systematic revision of these two genera necessary. Below, their results are shown with type species of named nothosaurid genera noted. Later, in 2017, the species ''N. juvenilis'', ''N. youngi'', and ''N. winkelhorsti'' were formally moved to ''Lariosaurus''.

References

* Parker, Steve. Dinosaurus: the complete guide to dinosaurs. Firefly Books Inc, 2003. Pg. 384

General references

* Dixon, Dougal (2006). ''The Complete Book of Dinosaurs''. Hermes House. * Haines, Tim, and Paul Chambers. ''The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life''. Pg. 64. Canada: Firefly Books Ltd., 2006 {{Taxonbar, from=Q910989 Triassic reptiles of Asia Triassic reptiles of Europe Nothosaurs Triassic sauropterygians Triassic reptiles of Africa Early Triassic first appearances Olenekian genera Anisian genera Ladinian genera Carnian genera Norian genus extinctions Sauropterygian genera