Pliosaurus

Pliosaurus is the type genus of the pliosaurs, one of the major group of the plesiosaurs, an extinct group of aquatic marine reptiles. It lived from the Upper Jurassic to the Lower Cretaceous in what is now Europe and South America. The first known fossil consists of a partial skeleton of an immature specimen collected by William Buckland in Market Rasen, England. Although initially mentioned in a 1824 paper by William Daniel Conybeare, it was not until 1841 that it was first formally described by Richard Owen as belonging to a new species of Plesiosaurus, before being given its own genus by the same author later that year. The genus name Pliosaurus means "more lizard", Owen naming the taxon of because its appearance being more reminiscent of crocodilians than to Plesiosaurus. While many species have been assigned to Pliosaurus in the past, only six are firmly recognised as valid since a 2013 paper. Two additional species from Argentina were named in 2014 and 2018, but their assignment to the genus has not been fully confirmed in subsequent classifications.

Pliosaurus

Radim Holiš · CC BY-SA 3.0 cz · 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
ThalassophoneaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Pliosauroidea
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Pliosauroidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Pliosauroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pliosauroidea
Length
12 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 89 million years on record.

The record covers at least 161.5 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 66 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 57 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 57 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 3 of 57 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 49 of 57 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 3 of 57 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 57 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 57 occurrences204–199 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences199–195 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences195–190 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences190–185 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences185–181 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences181–176 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences176–171 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences171–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–162 Mya — about 3 occurrences162–157 Mya — about 3 occurrences157–152 Mya — about 16 occurrences152–148 Mya — about 17 occurrences148–143 Mya — about 13 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences120–115 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences115–110 Mya — about 1 occurrence110–106 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences161.5 Mya72.2 Mya204 Mya63 Mya

57 occurrences of Pliosaurus on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

57 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

14 formations

Kimmeridge Clay — 51.74°N, 1.31°WKimmeridge Clay — 51.25°N, 2.16°WKimmeridge Clay — 52.35°N, 0.22°EKimmeridge Clay — 52.40°N, 0.28°EKimmeridge Clay — 53.39°N, 0.34°WKimmeridge Clay — 50.61°N, 2.45°WKimmeridge Clay — 50.61°N, 2.13°WKimmeridge Clay — 54.15°N, 0.23°WKimmeridge Clay — 51.75°N, 1.16°WKimmeridge Clay — 51.72°N, 1.16°WKimmeridge Clay — 51.55°N, 1.79°WKimmeridge Clay — 50.57°N, 2.45°WKimmeridge Clay — 51.41°N, 2.00°WKimmeridge Clay — 51.35°N, 1.99°WKimmeridge Clay — 50.63°N, 2.34°WCoral Rag — 54.13°N, 0.80°WCoral Rag — 51.75°N, 1.13°WOxford Clay — 52.57°N, 0.23°WAgardhfjellet — 78.32°N, 16.18°EVaca Muerta — 39.19°S, 69.67°WVaca Muerta — 38.07°S, 70.50°WFaringdon Sand — 51.65°N, 1.58°WAmpthill Clay — 52.18°N, 0.13°WPortland Stone — 51.55°N, 1.79°WSavel'evsk oil shales — 51.75°N, 48.85°ECalcaires de Moulin-Wibert — 50.74°N, 1.60°EPortland Oolite — 50.57°N, 2.45°WCoralline Oolite — 51.76°N, 1.20°WQuiriquina — 36.72°S, 73.12°WWoburn Sand — 52.12°N, 0.20°E

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The named rock units Pliosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pliosaurus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Pliosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

162 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 49 sites for Pliosaurus, 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

26 references

Each of the 57 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. 14 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 content3

Picture of Pliosaurus

Credit
Radim Holiš
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0 cz
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Pliosaurus sp. · camsm: J29552

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
SorbonNum
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itThalassophonea through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Owen 1841)