Plesiosauria

Searched as Plesiosauria indet.. The Paleobiology Database treats Plesiosauria as the accepted name.

The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period, possibly in the Rhaetian stage, about 203 million years ago. They became especially common during the Jurassic Period, thriving until their disappearance due to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago. They had a worldwide oceanic distribution, and some species at least partly inhabited freshwater environments.

Plesiosauria

Kim Alaniz · CC BY 2.0 · 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
Also called
plesiosaurPBDB
Sits inside
SauropterygiaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Environment
marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 148 million years on record.

The record covers at least 221 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 227.5 Mya to 66 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 6 of 230 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 15 of 230 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 11 of 230 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 18 of 230 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 36 of 230 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 144 of 230 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 230 occurrences231–225 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences225–220 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences214–208 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences208–203 Mya — about 3 occurrences203–197 Mya — about 7 occurrences197–192 Mya — about 3 occurrences192–186 Mya — about 3 occurrences186–180 Mya — about 2 occurrences180–175 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences175–169 Mya — about 3 occurrences169–164 Mya — about 5 occurrences164–158 Mya — about 7 occurrences158–152 Mya — about 5 occurrences152–147 Mya — about 4 occurrences147–141 Mya — about 5 occurrences141–136 Mya — about 4 occurrences136–130 Mya — about 4 occurrences130–124 Mya — about 4 occurrences124–119 Mya — about 9 occurrences119–113 Mya — about 2 occurrences113–108 Mya — about 5 occurrences108–102 Mya — about 5 occurrences102–96 Mya — about 22 occurrences96–91 Mya — about 26 occurrences91–85 Mya — about 15 occurrences85–80 Mya — about 17 occurrences80–74 Mya — about 20 occurrences74–68 Mya — about 31 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 16 occurrences221 Mya72.2 Mya231 Mya63 Mya

230 occurrences of Plesiosauria on record, most of them in the Late 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

230 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

103 formations

Dinosaur Park — 50.81°N, 111.32°WDinosaur Park — 49.12°N, 110.47°WDinosaur Park — 50.81°N, 111.63°WDinosaur Park — 50.74°N, 111.48°WDinosaur Park — 50.75°N, 111.42°WDinosaur Park — 50.68°N, 108.09°WGriman Creek — 29.46°S, 147.97°EGriman Creek — 29.45°S, 147.78°EGriman Creek — 29.45°S, 147.76°EGriman Creek — 29.44°S, 147.73°EGriman Creek — 29.40°S, 147.91°EAllen — 39.91°S, 66.57°WAllen — 40.06°S, 66.80°WAllen — 39.78°S, 66.70°WAllen — 39.46°S, 67.33°WNiobrara — 38.72°N, 100.70°WNiobrara — 39.03°N, 99.57°WNiobrara — 39.00°N, 99.48°WNiobrara — 38.70°N, 100.35°WNiobrara — 38.77°N, 100.57°WNiobrara — 38.78°N, 100.28°WNiobrara — 38.65°N, 100.48°WJagua — 22.62°N, 83.71°WJagua — 22.77°N, 83.50°WJagua — 22.75°N, 83.56°WLa Colonia — 42.95°S, 67.54°WTahora — 38.92°S, 176.83°E"Wonthaggi" — 38.56°S, 145.48°E"Wonthaggi" — 38.66°S, 145.68°E"Wonthaggi" — 38.65°S, 145.69°E"Wonthaggi" — 38.53°S, 145.37°EConway — 43.06°S, 172.58°EConway — 42.57°S, 173.52°EEumeralla — 38.78°S, 143.40°EEumeralla — 36.70°S, 143.40°EEumeralla — 38.85°S, 143.55°EEumeralla — 38.57°S, 143.95°EOxford Clay — 52.54°N, 0.25°WOxford Clay — 52.57°N, 0.23°WArcillas de Morella — 40.49°N, 0.42°EArcillas de Morella — 40.59°N, 0.15°WArcillas de Morella — 40.65°N, 0.30°WAgrio — 38.77°S, 70.00°WAgrio — 37.58°S, 70.00°WGraneros Shale — 41.79°N, 105.98°WGraneros Shale — 40.01°N, 97.17°WGraneros Shale — 38.93°N, 98.91°WLópez de Bertodano — 64.26°S, 56.77°WBückeberg — 52.26°N, 7.03°ELianmuqin — 46.10°N, 85.67°EJudith River — 48.03°N, 109.01°WJudith River — 47.79°N, 108.94°WAlcântara — 2.48°S, 44.46°WAlcântara — 2.67°S, 44.50°WLealt Shale — 56.92°N, 6.15°WLealt Shale — 56.91°N, 6.11°WRybushka — 52.47°N, 44.93°ERybushka — 51.24°N, 44.99°EGreenhorn Limestone — 39.00°N, 98.92°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.22°N, 103.60°WWaterloo Mudstone — 54.64°N, 5.96°WWaterloo Mudstone — 54.81°N, 5.74°WMolecap Greensand — 30.68°S, 115.70°EMolecap Greensand — 31.31°S, 115.92°E

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The named rock units Plesiosauria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 79 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 37 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Plesiosauria and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Plesiosauria and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

1,291 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 875 sites for Plesiosauria, and this reads 240 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

143 references

Each of the 230 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. 131 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 Plesiosauria

Credit
Kim Alaniz
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Plesiosauria was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itSauropterygia through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (de Blainville 1835)