Athena Review Image Archive ™
Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus skeleton
Skeleton of Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus (after Conybeare 1824).
Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus
was a large Early Jurassic marine vertebrate. Plesiosaurs were large
diapsid sea reptiles which first appeared in the Rhaetian stage of the
Late Triassic Period, about 205 mya. They flourished through the
Jurassic and Cretacous periods, lasting until the Cretaceous–Paleogene
extinction event about 65 mya. Their fossils have been found around the
world.
The name Pleisiosaurus
means "near lizard." They are identified as Sauropterygia, a group of
lepidosauromorph reptiles that returned to the sea. Most are extinct;
the living Lepidosauria include snakes and lizards.
The
first described fossil of the order Plesiosauria was by William Stukely
in 1719, who saw it on a stone slab from a quarry at Fulbeck,
England.
The Pleisiosaurus
skeleton shown here was discovered by Mary Anning in 1823 in the
coastal Blue Lias formation of alternate limestone and mudstone layers
at Lyme Regis, in Devonshire, England. The skeleton was portrayed in
1824 by William Conybeare`s drawings, published in the Transactions of
the Geological Society of London. These drawings, based on the P. dolichodeirus specimen discovered by Anning at Lyme Regis, first described the anatomy of Pleisosaurs with good accuracy.
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References:
Conybeare, W. 1824. Transactions of the Geological Society of London.
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