''Vinialesaurus'' is a

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 from the

Late Jurassic The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 163.5 ± 1.0 to 145.0 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.Owen 1987. In European lithostratigraphy, the name ...

( Oxfordian) Jagua Formation of

Pinar del Río Pinar del Río is the capital city of Pinar del Río Province, Cuba. With a population of 139,336 (2004) in a municipality of 190,332, it is the 10th-largest city in Cuba. Inhabitants of the area are called ''Pinareños''. History Pinar del R� ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. 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 specime ...

is ''Vinialesaurus caroli'', first described as ''

Cryptocleidus ''Cryptoclidus'' ( ) is a genus of plesiosaur reptile from the Middle Jurassic period of England, France, and Cuba. Discovery ''Cryptoclidus'' was a plesiosaur whose specimens include adult and juvenile skeletons, and remains which have bee ...

caroli'' by De la Torre and Rojas in 1949 under the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...

MNHNCu P 3008, and redescribed by Gasparini, Bardet and Iturralde in 2002. The authors of the 2002 paper considered ''Vinialesaurus'' distinct enough from ''Cryptocleidus'' to warrant its own genus, but it was broadly similar to ''Cryptocleidus''. The name ''Vinialesaurus'' honors

Viñales Viñales is a town and municipality in the north-central Pinar del Río Province of Cuba. The town consists mostly of one-story wooden houses with porches. The municipality is dominated by low mountain ranges of the Cordillera de Guaniguanico su ...

, the town in western Cuba where the fossils of ''Vinialesaurus'' was discovered. These fossils consist of a mostly complete skull, jaw, and portions of the

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 characteristi ...

e. It was a relatively small plesiosaur, reaching in length and in body mass.

References

External links

''Vinialesaurus''
in the Plesiosaur site {{Taxonbar, from=Q2705965 Cryptoclidids Late Jurassic plesiosaurs Oxfordian life Late Jurassic reptiles of North America Jurassic plesiosaurs of North America Jurassic Cuba Fossils of Cuba Fossil taxa described in 2002 Taxa named by Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini Sauropterygian genera

See also

References

External links