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Pliosauridae
Pliosauridae is a family of plesiosaurian marine reptiles from the Latest Triassic to the early Late Cretaceous (Rhaetian to Turonian stages) of Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The family is more inclusive than the archetypal short-necked large headed species that are placed in the subclade Thalassophonea, with basal forms resembling other plesiosaurs with long necks. They became extinct during the early Late Cretaceous and were subsequently replaced by the mosasaurs. It was formally named by Harry G. Seeley in 1874. Relationships Pliosauridae is a stem-based taxon defined in 2010 (and in earlier studies in a similar manner) as "all taxa more closely related to '' Pliosaurus brachydeirus'' than to '' Leptocleidus superstes'', '' Polycotylus latipinnis'' or '' Meyerasaurus victor''". The family Brachauchenidae has been proposed to include pliosauroids which have very short necks and may include ''Brachauchenius'' and ''Kronosaurus''. However, modern cladis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plesiosauria
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 in the latest Triassic Period, possibly in the Rhaetian stage, about 203 million years ago. They became especially common during the Jurassic Period, thriving until their disappearance due to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago. They had a worldwide oceanic distribution, and some species at least partly inhabited freshwater environments. Plesiosaurs were among the first fossil reptiles discovered. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists realised how distinctive their build was and they were named as a separate order in 1835. The first plesiosaurian genus, the eponymous '' Plesiosaurus'', was named in 1821. Since then, more than a hundred vali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hauffiosaurus
''Hauffiosaurus'' is an extinct genus of Early Jurassic (early Toarcian stage) pliosaurid plesiosaur known from Holzmaden of Germany and from Yorkshire of the United Kingdom. It was first named by Frank Robin O’Keefe in 2001 and the type species is ''Hauffiosaurus zanoni''. In 2011, two additional species were assigned to this genus: ''H. longirostris'' and ''H. tomistomimus''. Description The holotype specimen of ''Hauffiosaurus'', housed in the Hauff Museum, is an almost complete and articulated skeleton, found from the Posidonien-Schiefer, dating to early Toarcian stage of the Early Jurassic. The holotype specimen preserved in a single block of the original matrix, exposed in ventral view. The body outline visible around the specimen is an artifact of preparation, not preservation; no remains of soft tissue were preserved. The skeleton was discovered during the early 19th Century, in beds of the famous Posidonien-Schiefer lagerstätte at Holzmaden, Baden-Württemberg, in sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliosaurus Brachydeirus
''Pliosaurus'' (meaning 'more lizard') is an extinct genus of thalassophonean pliosaurid known from the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian stages (Late Jurassic) of Europe and South America. Their diet would have included fish, cephalopods, and marine reptiles. This genus has contained many species in the past but recent reviews found only six (''P. brachydeirus'', ''P. carpenteri'', ''P. funkei'', ''P. kevani'', ''P. rossicus'' and ''P. westburyensis'') to be valid, while the validity of two additional species awaits a petition to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Currently, ''P. brachyspondylus'' and ''P. macromerus'' are considered dubious, while ''P. portentificus'' is considered undiagnostic. Most species of ''Pliosaurus'' reached in length and in body mass, while ''P. rossicus'' and ''P. funkei'' may have reached or even exceeded in length and in body mass, being the largest plesiosaurs of all time. Species of this genus are differentiated from other pliosaurids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liopleurodon Ferox
''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 Middle Jurassic to the Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic Period (c. 166 to 155 mya). It was the apex predator of the Middle to Late Jurassic seas that covered Europe. The largest species, ''L. ferox'', is estimated to have grown up to in length, but could have been larger. The name "Liopleurodon" (meaning "smooth-sided tooth") derives from Ancient Greek words: ', "smooth"; ', "side" or "rib"; and ', "tooth". Discovery and species Even before ''Liopleurodon'' was named, material likely belonging to it was described. In 1841, Hermann von Meyer named the species ''Thaumatosaurus oolithicus'' based on a fragmentary specimen consisting of partial teeth, skull elements, vertebrae, and ribs from deposits in Württemberg, Germany poss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguanax
''Anguanax'' is an extinct genus of basal pliosaurid known from the Late Jurassic (Oxfordian stage) Rosso Ammonitico Veronese Formation of northern Italy. It contains a single species, ''Anguanax zignoi'', known from a partially complete individual, representing the first articulated skeleton of an Italian plesiosaurian. Discovery and naming ''Anguanax'' is known solely from the holotype MPPL 18797, currently housed at the Museo Paleontologico e della Preistoria ‘P. Leonardi’ in Ferrara. The skeleton, still articulated in several blocks of limestone, consists of a partial skull including the lower jaw, 32 isolated teeth, neck, back and tail vertebrae, a right pectoral girdle, a partial left humerus, a left radius, a left ulna, three left carpals, a partial pelvis, a femur, two epipodials, isolated metapodials and phalanges. It was collected during the 1980s from a nodular and cherty limestone interval at the Kaberlaba quarry in the Asiago Municipality of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thalassiodracon
''Thalassiodracon'' (tha-LAS-ee-o-DRAY-kon) is an extinct genus of plesiosauroid from the Pliosauridae that was alive during the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic (Rhaetian-Hettangian) and is known exclusively from the Lower Lias of England. The type and only species, is ''Thalassiodracon'' (''Plesiosaurus'') ''hawkinsi'' (Owen, 1838). Owen, R. (1838). A description of Viscount Cole's specimen of '' Plesiosaurus macrocephalus'' ( Conybeare). ''Proceedings of the Geological Society of London 2'', 663-666. Discovery and naming ''Thalassiodracon hawkinsi'' is known from a number of complete skeletons ( lectotype: BMNH 2018) acquired by the fossil collector Thomas Hawkins in Somerset, England during the early 1830s, before 1834. Hawkins, an eccentric Pre-Adamite who had his fossils heavily restaured and illustrated by distinguished artists in expensive editions to propagate his ideas, named these ''Plesiosaurus triotarsostinus'' in 1834 and ''Hezatarostinus'' in 1840 but these names ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arminisaurus
''Arminisaurus'' (meaning "lizard of Arminius") is a genus of pliosaurid plesiosaur that lived during the Lower Jurassic in present-day Germany. With '' Westphaliasaurus'' and '' Cryonectes'', ''Arminisaurus'' is only the third plesiosaurian taxon that was described from the Pliensbachian stage. The holotype and only known specimen is a fragmentary skeleton (about 40 percent complete), comprising an incomplete lower jaw, teeth, vertebrae and elements from the pectoral girdle and the paddles. The animal had an estimated body length of . Discovery and naming The holotype was discovered in the early 1980s by the Hannover-based fossil collector Lothar Schulz in the now abandoned clay pit Beukenhorst II, located in the Bielefeld district of Jöllenbeck. The specimen was later given to amateur palaeontologist Siegfried Schubert who transferred it to the Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld in 2015 ( accession number: NAMU ES/jl 36052). ''Arminisaurus schuberti'' was described in 2018 by Sv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eiectus
''Eiectus'' is a potentially dubious genus of extinct short-necked pliosaur that lived in the Early Cretaceous period.Hampe O. (1992). Ein großwüchsiger Pliosauride (Reptilia: Plesiosauria) aus der Unterkreide (oberes Aptium) von Kolumbien. ''Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg'' 145: 1–32. Kear BP. (2003). Cretaceous marine reptiles of Australia: a review of taxonomy and distribution. Cretaceous Research 24: 277–303. Fossil material has been recovered from the Toolebuc Formation (middle to late Albian) and Wallumbilla Formations (Aptian) of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia and much of this fossil material was initially classified under the related genus ''Kronosaurus'' until 2021. History Initial discoveries A partial skull previously assigned to ''Kronosaurus queenslandicus'' that was discovered in 1929 in the same place as the holotype of ''K. queenslandicus'' probably belonged to ''Eiectus'', and another skull discovered in 1935 near Telemon Station in Hug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thalassophonea
Thalassophonea is an extinct clade of pliosaurids from the Middle Jurassic to the early Late Cretaceous ( Callovian to Turonian) of Australia, Europe, North America and South America. ''Thalassophonea'' was erected by Roger Benson and Patrick Druckenmiller in 2013. The name is derived from Greek ''thalassa'' (θάλασσα), "sea", and ''phoneus'' (φονεύς), "murderer". It is a stem-based taxon defined as "all taxa more closely related to '' Pliosaurus brachydeirus'' than to '' Marmornectes candrewi''". It includes the short necked and large headed taxa that typify the family. Classification The following cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ... follows an analysis by Benson & Druckenmiller (2014). References Middle Jurassic first appearances ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monquirasaurus
''Monquirasaurus'' is a monotypic genus of giant pliosaurid from the Cretaceous Paja Formation in Colombia. It contains a single species, ''M. boyacensis'', previously known as ''Kronosaurus boyacensis''. History and naming The holotype and only known specimen of ''Monquirasaurus'' is a long (as preserved), substantially complete and articuled skeleton of a young adult animal discovered in 1977 by Samuel Vargas, Enrique Zubieta and German Zubieta on the lands of Tito Hurtado. Excavations were conducted by geologists, archaeologists and palaeontologists from the Instituto Colombiano de Geología y Minería (now Servicio Geológico Colombiano), the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Locally the specimen soon became known as "El Fósil", before being formally described as ''Kronosaurus boyacensis'' by Hampe in 1992 after being informally attributed to ''Kronosaurus'' in the years prior. This description however was conduct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attenborosaurus
''Attenborosaurus'' is an extinct genus of pliosaurid from the Early Jurassic of Dorset, England. The type species is ''A. conybeari''. The genus is named after David Attenborough, the species after William Conybeare (geologist), William Conybeare. History The original remains of the holotype, specimen PV OR 38525, were discovered in Charmouth, Dorset, England in 1880 and was described in 1881 before being housed at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, where a cast was taken of NHMUK R1339 and sent to the Natural History Museum in London by William Johnson Sollas, , where it stayed until the holotype was destroyed in November 1940, during World War II, leaving only plaster casts of the remains to be studied; the type cast (specimen NHMUK R1339) is now housed at the Natural History Museum, London along with a referred specimen (specimen NHMUK OR40140/R1360; includes no head, neck or tail, most of the body, ribs and all flippers except for the front right) and another partial s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mosasaurs
Mosasaurs (from Latin ''Mosa'' meaning the 'Meuse', and Greek ' meaning 'lizard') comprise a group of extinct, large marine reptiles from the Late Cretaceous. Their first fossil remains were discovered in a limestone quarry at Maastricht on the Meuse in 1764. They belong to the order Squamata, which includes lizards and snakes. Mosasaurs probably evolved from an extinct group of aquatic lizards known as aigialosaurs in the Earliest Late Cretaceous with 42 described genera. During the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous period (Turonian–Maastrichtian ages), with the extinction of the ichthyosaurs and pliosaurs, mosasaurs became the dominant marine predators. They themselves became extinct as a result of the K-Pg event at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago. Description Mosasaurs breathed air, were powerful swimmers, and were well-adapted to living in the warm, shallow inland seas prevalent during the Late Cretaceous period. Mosasaurs were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
