Related Research Articles
Cimolodon is a genus of the extinct mammal order of Multituberculata within the suborder Cimolodonta and the family Cimolodontidae. Specimens are known from the Late Cretaceous of North America.
Nothronychus is a genus of therizinosaurid theropod dinosaurs that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous period. The type species, Nothronychus mckinleyi, was described by James Kirkland and Douglas G. Wolfe in 2001. It was recovered near New Mexico's border with Arizona, in an area known as the Zuni Basin, from rocks assigned to the Moreno Hill Formation, dating to the late Cretaceous period, around 91 million years ago. A second specimen, described in 2009 as a second species, Nothronychus graffami, was found in the Tropic Shale of Utah, dating to the early Turonian, between one million and a half million years older than N. mckinleyi.
James Ian Kirkland is an American paleontologist and geologist. He has worked with dinosaur remains from the south west United States of America and Mexico and has been responsible for discovering new and important genera. He named Animantarx, Cedarpelta, Eohadrosaurus, Jeyawati, Gastonia, Mymoorapelta, Nedcolbertia, Utahraptor, Zuniceratops, Europelta and Diabloceratops. At the same site where he found Gastonia and Utahraptor, Kirkland has also excavated fossils of the therizinosaurs Nothronychus and Falcarius.
Plesiopleurodon is an extinct genus of Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to Sauropterygia, known from the Late Cretaceous of North America. It was named by Kenneth Carpenter based on a complete skull with a mandible, cervical vertebra, and a coracoid. In naming the specimen, Carpenter noted "Of all known pliosaurs, Plesiopleurodon wellesi most closely resembles Liopleurodon ferox from the Oxfordian of Europe, hence the generic reference." It was initially described as a pliosaur due to it short neck, a common trait of the family, although it is in the order Plesiosauria. However, later exploration into the relationships of both orders indicate that not all pliosaurs have short necks and not all plesiosaurs have long necks.
Polycotylidae is a family of plesiosaurs from the Cretaceous, a sister group to Leptocleididae.
Dolichorhynchops is an extinct genus of polycotylid plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America, containing three species, D. osborni, D. bonneri and D. tropicensis, as well as a questionably referred fourth species, D. herschelensis. Dolichorhynchops was an oceangoing prehistoric reptile. Its Greek generic name means "long-nosed face".
The Bearpaw Formation, also called the Bearpaw Shale, is a geologic formation of Late Cretaceous (Campanian) age. It outcrops in the U.S. state of Montana, as well as the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and was named for the Bear Paw Mountains in Montana. It includes a wide range of marine fossils, as well as the remains of a few dinosaurs. It is known for its fossil ammonites, some of which are mined in Alberta to produce the organic gemstone ammolite.
Polyptychodon is a genus of pliosaurid found in Middle-Late Cretaceous marine deposits in southern England and Patagonia. It has been considered a nomen dubium in a 2016 review.
Terminonaris is a genus of extinct pholidosaurid crocodyliforms that lived during the Late Cretaceous epoch. The name means: “enlarged snout or nose” at the front of the skull. Terminonaris is an early crocodile, within a subgroup called Mesoeucrocodylia. Its remains have only been found in North America and Europe. Originally known under the generic name Teleorhinus, it was once believed to be a teleosaurid. Both prehistoric crocodiles such as Terminonaris, as well as modern crocodiles, belong to the same group called crocodyliformes, although modern crocodiles have specific features that indicate they are distant relatives of this species and members of the subgroup Eusuchia.
Brancasaurus is a genus of plesiosaur which lived in a freshwater lake in the Early Cretaceous of what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a long neck possessing vertebrae bearing distinctively-shaped "shark fin"-shaped neural spines, and a relatively small and pointed head, Brancasaurus is superficially similar to Elasmosaurus, albeit smaller in size at 3.26 metres (10.7 ft) in length.
Polycotylus is a genus of plesiosaur within the family Polycotylidae. The type species is P. latippinis and was named by American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in 1869. Eleven other species have been identified. The name means 'much-cupped vertebrae', referring to the shape of the vertebrae. It lived in the Western Interior Seaway of North America toward the end of the Cretaceous. One fossil preserves an adult with a single large fetus inside of it, indicating that Polycotylus gave live birth, an unusual adaptation among reptiles.
The Wahweap Formation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a geological formation in southern Utah and northern Arizona, around the Lake Powell region, whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.
The Woodbine Group is a geological formation in east Texas whose strata date back to the Early to Middle Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous. It is the producing formation of the giant East Texas Oil Field from which over 5.42 billion barrels of oil have been produced. The Woodbine overlies the Maness Shale, Buda Limestone, or older rocks, and underlies the Eagle Ford Group or Austin Chalk. In outcrop the Woodbine Group has been subdivided into the Lewisville Sandstone, Dexter Sandstone, and/or Pepper Shale formations. Thin-bedded sands of the Woodbine and Eagle Ford are collectively referred to as the "Eaglebine" oil and gas play in the southwestern portion of the East Texas region.
Eopolycotylus is an extinct genus of Polycotylid plesiosaur known from the Cenomanian-age Tropic Shale of Utah.
Palmulasaurus is a genus of polycotylid plesiosaur from the Turonian Tropic Shale of Utah. It was originally described as Palmula, but the name was occupied by a genus of Cretaceous foraminifer first described in 1833.
The Tropic Shale is a Mesozoic geologic formation. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation, including Nothronychus graffami. The Tropic Shale is a stratigraphic unit of the Kaiparowits Plateau of south central Utah. The Tropic Shale was first named in 1931 after the town of Tropic where the Type section is located. The Tropic Shale outcrops in Kane and Garfield counties, with large sections of exposure found in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The Straight Cliffs Formation is a stratigraphic unit in the Kaiparowits Plateau of south central Utah. It is Late Cretaceous in age and contains fluvial, paralic, and marginal marine (shoreline) siliciclastic strata. It is well exposed around the margin of the Kaiparowits Plateau in the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument in south central Utah. The formation is named after the Straight Cliffs, a long band of cliffs creating the topographic feature Fiftymile Mountain.
Megacephalosaurus is an extinct genus of short-necked pliosaur that inhabited the Western Interior Seaway of North America about 94 to 93 million years ago during the Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous, containing the single species M. eulerti. It is named after its large head, which is the largest of any plesiosaur in the continent and measures up to 1.75 meters (5.7 ft) in length. Megacephalosaurus was one of the largest marine reptiles of its time with an estimated length of 6–9 meters (20–30 ft). Its long snout and consistently sized teeth suggest that it preferred a diet on smaller-sized prey.
Mauriciosaurus is a genus of polycotylid plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Mexico. It contains a single species, M. fernandezi, described in 2017 by Eberhard Frey and colleagues from a single well-preserved juvenile specimen about 1.9 metres long. Morphologically, it is overall most similar to the polycotyline polycotylids Trinacromerum and Dolichorhynchops. However, several features separate Mauriciosaurus from all other polycotylids, warranting the naming of a new genus. These include the sophisticated pattern of ridges on the bottom of the parasphenoid bone on its palate; the narrow openings in the palate bordered by the pterygoid bones; the lack of perforations in the surface of the coracoid; and the highly unusual arrangement of gastralia, or belly ribs, which is only otherwise seen in the non-polycotylid Cryptoclidus.
References
- ↑ The Paleobiology Database: Palmula
- ↑ Albright, L. B. III, D. D. Gillette, and A. L. Titus. 2007. Plesiosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian-Turonian) Tropic Shale of southern Utah: Part 2, Polycotylidae. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology27(1):41-58.
- ↑ Albright, L. B. III, D. D. Gillette, and A. L. Titus. 2007. Plesiosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian-Turonian) Tropic Shale of southern Utah, Part 2: Polycotylidae: replacement names for the preoccupied genus Palmula and the subfamily Palmulainae. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology27(4):1051.
 | This article related to Jurassic life is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This article about Cretaceous life is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |