Plesiopleurodon
Name:
Plesiopleurodon
(near Liopleurodon).
Phonetic: Ples-e-o-plur-o-don.
Named By: K. Carpenter - 1996.
Classification: Chordata, Plesiosauria,
Plesiosauroidea, Polycotylidae.
Species: P. wellesi (type).
Diet: Carnivore/Piscivore.
Size: Skull 71 centimetres long.
Known locations: USA, Wyoming - Hailey Shales
Formation (Belle Fourche Member).
Time period: Early Cenomanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Skull and lower jaws, as
well as cervical (neck) vertebrae and a coracoid (part of the
shoulder).
Plesiopleurodon is a genus of polycotylid plesiosaur that is known to have lived in the Western Interior seaway of North America during the early part of the Late Cretaceous. As with others of its kind, Plesiopleurodon would have had a proportionately shorter neck and longer jaws than other plesiosaurs.
Further reading
- A review of short-necked plesiosaurs of the Western Interior,
North America. - Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Palaontologie,
Abhandlungen 201(2):259-287. - K. Carpenter - 1996.
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