''Plutoniosaurus'' is an extinct genus of
ophthalmosaurid
Ophthalmosauridae is an extinct family of thunnosaur ichthyosaurs from the Middle Jurassic to the early Late Cretaceous (Bajocian - Cenomanian) worldwide. Almost all ichthyosaurs from the Middle Jurassic onwards belong to the family, until the ex ...
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 ...
from the
Early Cretaceous
The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma.
Geology
Pro ...
(late
Hauterivian) of the vicinity of
Ulyanovsk,
European Russia
European Russia (russian: Европейская Россия, russian: европейская часть России, label=none) is the western and most populated part of Russia. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the cou ...
.
Taxonomy
The holotype is UPM 2/740, a partial skeleton.
''Plutoniosaurus'' is possibly the same species as the nearly coeval ''
Simbirskiasaurus''. Zverkov and Efimov (2019) recover ''Plutoniosaurus'' in the polytomy with the ''
Platypterygius'' type species and ''
Leninia''.
[Nikolay G. Zverkov; Vladimir M. Efimov (2019). Revision of Undorosaurus, a mysterious Late Jurassic ichthyosaur of the Boreal Realm. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. in press. doi:10.1080/14772019.2018.1515793.]
Phylogeny
The following cladogram shows a possible phylogenetic position of ''Plutoniosaurus'' in Ophthalmosauridae according to the analysis performed by Zverkov and Jacobs (2020).
See also
*
List of ichthyosaurs
This list of ichthyosaurs is a comprehensive listing of all genera that have ever been included in the order Ichthyosauria or the parent clade Ichthyopterygia, excluding purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but a ...
*
Timeline of ichthyosaur research
This timeline of ichthyosaur research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the ichthyosauromorphs, a group of secondarily aquatic marine reptiles whose later members superficially resembled dolphins, shar ...
References
Ichthyosaurs
Ichthyosauromorph genera
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