Plesiopleurodon

Taxobox
name = "Plesiopleurodon"
fossil_range = Late Cretaceous

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regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
ordo = Plesiosauria
subordo = Pliosauroidea
familia = Pliosauridae
genus = "Plesiopleurodon"
genus_authority= Carpenter, 1996 Carpenter K. 1996. A review of short-necked plesiosaurs from the Cretaceous of the Western Interior, North America. "Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen" 210 (2): 259-287.]
subdivision_ranks=Species
subdivision=
*"P. wellesi" Carpenter, 1996 (type species)

"Plesiopleurodon" is an extinct genus of pliosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America. It was named by Carpenter based upon a complete skull and lower jaws, neck vertebrae, and a right coracoid . It was collected from the Belle Fourche Shale (lower Cenomanian), in the Rattlesnake Hills of Wyoming. In naming the specimen, Carpenter (1996, p. 264) noted "Of all known pliosaurs, "P [lesiopleurodon] wellesi" most closely resembles "Liopleurodon ferox" from the Oxfordian of Europe, hence the generic reference."

The species is characterized by a moderately long symphysis bearing 8 pairs of teeth, teeth that are nearly circular in cross-section and which are smooth on the outer surface (except near the base), ribs of the neck vertebrae being singled-headed (double-headed in Jurassic pliosaurs), and a long slender interpectoral bar on the coracoid.

References