Vectocleidus pastorum

Vectocleidus is an extinct genus of leptocleidid plesiosaurian known from the Early Cretaceous Vectis Formation of Isle of Wight, in the United Kingdom. It contains a single species, Vectocleidus pastorum.

Vectocleidus pastorum

Creator: Dmitry Bogdanov · 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
VectocleidusPBDB
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 most 4.4 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 121.4 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEarly Cretaceous126–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126.3 Mya120.9 Mya

1 occurrence of Vectocleidus pastorum 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

1 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

1 formation

Vectis — 50.63°N, 1.41°W

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The named rock units Vectocleidus pastorum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Vectocleidus pastorum and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Vectocleidus pastorum and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

No other named taxon is catalogued from that site.

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Vectocleidus pastorum, and this reads all of them.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Vectocleidus pastorum

Credit
Creator: Dmitry Bogdanov
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Vectocleidus pastorum 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 itVectocleidus through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Benson et al. 2013