Leptocleididae

Leptocleididae is a family of small-sized plesiosaurs that lived during the Early Cretaceous period. They had small bodies with small heads and short necks. Leptocleidus and Umoonasaurus had round bodies and triangle-shaped heads. Leptocleidids have been found in what were shallow nearshore, freshwater and brackish habitats. Hilary F. Ketchum and Roger B. J. Benson (2010), transferred Brancasaurus, Kaiwhekea, Nichollssaura and Thililua to this family. However, Ketchum and Benson (2011) reassigned Kaiwhekea and Thililua to their original positions, as an elasmosaurid and a polycotylid, respectively.

Leptocleididae

Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com ) · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
LeptocleidiaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Environment
marinePBDB, for Plesiosauria

Time the record covers

At least 27 million years on record.

The record covers at least 141 Mya to 113.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 161.5 Mya to 100.5 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 21 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 21 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 20 of 21 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 21 occurrences163–161 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences161–158 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158–156 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences156–154 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences154–152 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences152–150 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences150–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–144 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences144–142 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences142–139 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences139–137 Mya — about 2 occurrences137–135 Mya — about 3 occurrences135–133 Mya — about 3 occurrences133–131 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences131–129 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences129–127 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences127–125 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences125–123 Mya — about 2 occurrences123–120 Mya — about 1 occurrence120–118 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences118–116 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences116–114 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences112–110 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences110–108 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences108–106 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences106–104 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences104–101 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences101–99 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences141 Mya113.2 Mya163 Mya99 Mya

21 occurrences of Leptocleididae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

21 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

9 formations

Wadhurst Clay — 50.90°N, 0.51°EWadhurst Clay — 50.85°N, 0.57°EWadhurst Clay — 51.15°N, 0.40°EBulldog Shale — 30.45°S, 137.17°EBulldog Shale — 29.01°S, 134.67°EBulldog Shale — 29.30°S, 137.42°EBulldog Shale — 27.85°S, 135.92°EBückeberg — 52.26°N, 7.03°EMurderong Shale — 27.59°S, 114.24°EClearwater — 57.01°N, 111.66°WWeald Clay — 50.83°N, 0.15°ESundays River — 33.82°S, 25.55°ESpilsby Sandstone — 53.49°N, 0.33°WVectis — 50.63°N, 1.41°W

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The named rock units Leptocleididae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Leptocleididae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Leptocleididae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

55 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Leptocleididae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

15 references

Each of the 21 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 3 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Leptocleididae

Credit
Nobu Tamura ( http://spinops.blogspot.com )
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Leptocleididae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itLeptocleidia through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. White 1940