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The Plesiosauria or Plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia.
Liopleurodon 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. 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 6.6 metres (22 ft) in length based on the largest known skull.
Cryptosaurus is a dubious genus of dinosaur known from a partial femur from the Late Jurassic of England. The sole species is Cryptosaurus eumerus.
Acanthopholis is a genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur in the family Nodosauridae that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period of England. A single species, A. horrida, exists.
Ornithocheirus is a pterosaur genus known from fragmentary fossil remains uncovered from sediments in the UK and possibly Morocco.
Syngonosaurus is an extinct genus of ornithopod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous. It was an iguanodontian discovered in England and was first described in 1879. The type species, S. macrocercus, was described by British paleontologist Harry Seeley in 1879 and it was later synonymised with Acanthopholis, but the genus was reinstated in a 2020 study, when Syngonosaurus and Eucercosaurus were reinterpreted as basal iguanodontians.
Macrurosaurus is the name given to a genus of dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous. It was a titanosauriform which lived in what is now England. The type species, M. semnus, was named in 1876. A second species, M. platypus, may also exist.
Priodontognathus was a genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur possibly from the Oxfordian-age Upper Jurassic Lower Calcareous Grit of Yorkshire, England. It is a dubious genus based on a maxilla, and has been erroneously mixed up with iguanodonts and stegosaurs.
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. Their diet mainly consisted of crustaceans and molluscs.
Peloneustes is a genus of pliosaurid plesiosaur from the Middle Jurassic of England. Its remains are known from the Peterborough Member of the Oxford Clay Formation, which is Callovian in age. It was originally described as a species of Plesiosaurus by palaeontologist Harry Govier Seeley in 1869, before being given its own genus by naturalist Richard Lydekker in 1889. While many species have been assigned to Peloneustes, P. philarchus is currently the only one still considered valid, with the others moved to different genera, considered nomina dubia, or synonymised with P. philarchus. Some of the material formerly assigned to P. evansi have since been reassigned to "Pliosaurus" andrewsi. Peloneustes is known from many specimens, including some very complete material.
Rhomaleosaurus is an extinct genus of Early Jurassic rhomaleosaurid pliosauroid known from Northamptonshire and from Yorkshire of the United Kingdom. It was first named by Harry Seeley in 1874 and the type species is Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni. It was one of the earliest large marine reptile predators which hunted in the seas of Mesozoic era, with the type species R. cramptoni measuring 6.7–7 metres (22–23 ft) long and weighing 2.1 metric tons. Like other pliosaurs, Rhomaleosaurus fed on ichthyosaurs, ammonites and other plesiosaurs.
Pliosauridae is a family of plesiosaurian marine reptiles from the Latest Triassic to the early Late Cretaceous 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.
Ornithostoma is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period of Europe, around 110 million years ago. Ornithostoma was once thought to have been a senior synonym of the pteranodontid Pteranodon due to its toothless anatomy and prior naming.
Colymbosaurus is a genus of cryptoclidid plesiosaur from the Late Jurassic (Callovian-Tithonian) of the UK and Svalbard, Norway. There are two currently recognized species, C. megadeirus and C. svalbardensis. Both species are relatively medium-sized plesiosaurs, reaching 5 metres (16 ft) in length and 700 kilograms (1,500 lb) in body mass.
Eretmosaurus is an extinct genus of plesiosaur.
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.
Lonchodraco is a genus of lonchodraconid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Late Cretaceous of southern England. The genus includes species that were previously assigned to other genera.
Camposipterus is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of England. Fossil remains of Camposipterus dated back to the Early Cretaceous, about 112 million years ago.
Ikrandraco is a genus of lonchodraconid pterodactyloid pterosaur known from Lower Cretaceous rocks in northeastern China and the Cambridge Greensand of the UK. It is notable for its unusual skull, which features a crest on the lower jaw.
Aerodraco is a genus of anhanguerid pterosaur from the Albian–Cenomanian-age Cambridge Greensand of England. It contains only one species, Aerodraco sedgwickii. It was originally assigned to the genus Pterodactylus.
References
- ↑ Seeley, H.G. (1869). Index to the fossil remains of Aves, Ornithosauria and Reptilia, from the Secondary system of strata arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge. Cambridge, 143 pp.
- H. G. Seeley. 1892. The Nature of the Shoulder Girdle and Clavicular Arch in Sauropterygia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 51:119-151
