Bathyspondylus

Taxobox
name = "Bathyspondylus"
fossil_range =fossilrange|155|150 Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian)


image_caption =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
superordo = Sauropterygia
unranked = Eusauropterygia
ordo = Plesiosauria
genus = "Bathyspondylus"
genus_authority = Delair 1982
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =
* "Bathyspondylus swindoniensis" (type) (Delair 1982)

"Bathyspondylus" is an extinct genus of plesiosaur. It was first described in 1982 from a specimen originally found in 1774, now housed at the Devizes Museum.>cite web
url=http://www.dinosauria.com/dml/names/ples.html
title= dinosauria.com entry on "Bathyspondylus"
accessdate=2008-09-22] Because it is known only from its fossil vertebrae (and so few of those have been recovered), paleontologists are not entirely sure of the taxonomy of "Bathyspondylus"; the family it belongs to is not currently known. Cladistic Analysis of the Plesiosauria (Reptilia: Sauropterygia)Adam Stuart Smith, Supervised by M. J. Benton. University of Bristol, Department of Earth Sciences. September 2003. pg. 18 ]

The type, and only known, species of "Bathyspondylus" is "Bathyspondylus swindoniensis", which was described from the same material as its genus.

Etymology

The genus name "Bathyspondylus" is a compound of two Greek roots: βαθυς ("bathys") 'deep' and σπονδυλος ("spondylos") 'vertebra'.cite web
url=http://www.plesiosaur.com/database/genusIndividual.php?i=65
title= plesiosaur.com entry on "Bathyspondylus"
accessdate=2008-09-18] It can thus be translated as "deep-vertebrae".

The species name "B. swindoniensis" refers to the town of Swindon in Wiltshire, near which the holotype specimen was discovered.

Description

"Bathyspondylus" had centra set fairly deep in the vertebrae relative to its length, as its name (the Greek words for "deep-vertebrae") would suggest. The vertebrae themselves are short antero-posteriorly and can be flat or concave on their terminal faces. The holotype specimen, from 1774, appears to have features of both pliosauroids and plesiosauroids incorporated into its bones.

Distribution

"Bathyspondylus" lived during the Kimmeridgian faunal stage of the Jurassic period, which occurred roughly 155 to 150 million years ago. The first of its fossils came from deposits near Swindon in Wiltshire, England.

References

External links

*http://www.plesiosaur.com/database/genusIndividual.php?i=65
*http://www.dinosauria.com/dml/names/ples.html