Plesiosauroidea is an extinct clade of carnivorous marine reptiles. They have the snake-like longest neck to body ratio of any reptile. Plesiosauroids are known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. After their discovery, some plesiosauroids were said to have resembled "a snake threaded through the shell of a turtle", although they had no shell.
Elasmosaurus is a genus of plesiosaur that lived in North America during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, about 80.5 million years ago. The first specimen was discovered in 1867 near Fort Wallace, Kansas, US, and was sent to the American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, who named it E. platyurus in 1868. The generic name means "thin-plate reptile", and the specific name means "flat-tailed". Cope originally reconstructed the skeleton of Elasmosaurus with the skull at the end of the tail, an error which was made light of by the paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh, and became part of their "Bone Wars" rivalry. Only one incomplete Elasmosaurus skeleton is definitely known, consisting of a fragmentary skull, the spine, and the pectoral and pelvic girdles, and a single species is recognized today; other species are now considered invalid or have been moved to other genera.
Elasmosauridae is an extinct family of plesiosaurs, often called elasmosaurs. They had the longest necks of the plesiosaurs and existed from the Hauterivian to the Maastrichtian stages of the Cretaceous, and represented one of the two groups of plesiosaurs present at the end of the Cretaceous alongside Polycotylidae.
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.
Dolichorhynchops is an extinct genus of polycotylid plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America, containing the species D. osborni and D. herschelensis, with two previous species having been assigned to new genera. Specimens of D. osborni have been found in the early Coniacian to early Campanian rocks, while those of D. herschelensis have been found in the late Campanian to early Maastrichtian rocks. Dolichorhynchops was a prehistoric marine reptile. Its Greek generic name means "long-nosed face". While typically measuring about 3 metres (9.8 ft) in length, the largest specimen of D. osborni is estimated to have a total body length more than approximately 4.3 metres (14 ft).
Brachauchenius is an extinct genus of pliosaurid that lived in North America and Morocco during the Late Cretaceous.
Tuarangisaurus is an extinct genus of elasmosaurid known from New Zealand. The type and only known species is Tuarangisaurus keyesi, named by Wiffen and Moisley in 1986.
Aphrosaurus was an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Maastrichtian. The type species is Aphrosaurus furlongi, named by Welles in 1943. The holotype specimen was discovered in the Moreno Formation in Fresno County, California in 1939 by rancher Frank C. Piava. A second specimen - LACM 2832 - was also found in the same formation and initially diagnosed as a juvenile of the same species, but has since been removed from the genus.
Styxosaurus is a genus of plesiosaur of the family Elasmosauridae. Styxosaurus lived during the Campanian age of the Cretaceous period. Three species are known: S. snowii, S. browni, and S. rezaci.
The Pierre Shale is a geologic formation or series in the Upper Cretaceous which occurs east of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains, from Pembina Valley in Canada to New Mexico.
Callawayasaurus is a genus of plesiosaur from the family Elasmosauridae. When the holotype was first described by Samuel Paul Welles in 1962, it was described as Alzadasaurus colombiensis before being moved into its current genus by Kenneth Carpenter in 1999.
Aristonectes is an extinct genus of large elasmosaurid plesiosaurs that lived during the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous. Two species are known, A. parvidens and A. quiriquinensis, whose fossil remains were discovered in what are now Patagonia and Antarctica. Throughout the 20th century, Aristonectes was a difficult animal for scientists to analyze due to poor fossil preparation, its relationships to other genera were uncertain. After subsequent revisions and discoveries carried out from the beginning of the 21st century, Aristonectes is now recognised as the type genus of the subfamily Aristonectinae, a lineage of elasmosaurids characterized by an enlarged skull and a reduced length of the neck.
During the time of the deposition of the Niobrara Chalk, much life inhabited the seas of the Western Interior Seaway. By this time in the Late Cretaceous many new lifeforms appeared such as mosasaurs, which were to be some of the last of the aquatic lifeforms to evolve before the end of the Mesozoic. Life of the Niobrara Chalk is comparable to that of the Dakota Formation, although the Dakota Formation, which was deposited during the Cenomanian, predates the chalk by about 10 million years.
The Carlile Shale is a Turonian age Upper/Late Cretaceous series shale geologic formation in the central-western United States, including in the Great Plains region of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Albertonectes is an extinct genus of elasmosaurid plesiosaur known from the Late Cretaceous Bearpaw Formation of Alberta, Canada. It contains a single species, Albertonectes vanderveldei. Albertonectes is the longest elasmosaur, and more generally plesiosaur, known to date both in neck and total body length.
Paleontology in Kansas refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Kansas. Kansas has been the source of some of the most spectacular fossil discoveries in US history. The fossil record of Kansas spans from the Cambrian to the Pleistocene. From the Cambrian to the Devonian, Kansas was covered by a shallow sea. During the ensuing Carboniferous the local sea level began to rise and fall. When sea levels were low the state was home to richly vegetated deltaic swamps where early amphibians and reptiles lived. Seas expanded across most of the state again during the Permian, but on land the state was home to thousands of different insect species. The popular pterosaur Pteranodon is best known from this state. During the early part of the Cenozoic era Kansas became a savannah environment. Later, during the Ice Age, glaciers briefly entered the state, which was home to camels, mammoths, mastodons, and saber-teeth. Local fossils may have inspired Native Americans to regard some local hills as the homes of sacred spirit animals. Major scientific discoveries in Kansas included the pterosaur Pteranodon and a fossil of the fish Xiphactinus that died in the act of swallowing another fish.
This timeline of plesiosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, taxonomic revisions, and cultural portrayals of plesiosaurs, an order of marine reptiles that flourished during the Mesozoic Era. The first scientifically documented plesiosaur fossils were discovered during the early 19th century by Mary Anning. Plesiosaurs were actually discovered and described before dinosaurs. They were also among the first animals to be featured in artistic reconstructions of the ancient world, and therefore among the earliest prehistoric creatures to attract the attention of the lay public. Plesiosaurs were originally thought to be a kind of primitive transitional form between marine life and terrestrial reptiles. However, now plesiosaurs are recognized as highly derived marine reptiles descended from terrestrial ancestors.
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 of smaller-sized prey.
The Greenhorn Limestone or Greenhorn Formation is a geologic formation in the Great Plains Region of the United States, dating to the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous period. The formation gives its name to the Greenhorn cycle of the Western Interior Seaway.
Lagenanectes is a genus of elasmosaurid plesiosaur from the Lower Cretaceous, found in Lower Saxony, Germany. The only species, Lagenanectes richterae, was first described in 2017, and is regarded as one of the best-preserved plesiosaur fossils from this geological age in Europe. Lagenanectes is one of the earliest elasmosaurids. The holotype is an incomplete skeleton, comprising large parts of the skull, some neck and tail vertebrae as well as ribs and part of the limbs. A length of about 8 meters has been estimated.
