Opallionectes is a large, around 5 m long, derived cryptoclidid plesiosauroid from the Early Cretaceous of South Australia. It is known from a partial opalised skeleton, which is mounted for display in the South Australian Museum. The holotype specimen lacks a skull.
Category «Plesiosauroidea»
Plesionectes
Umoonasaurus
Umoonasaurus is a small (~2.5 m long) leptocleidid that lived during the Early Cretaceous in Southern Australia. The holotype specimen (AM F99374), a spectacular opalised skeleton including the skull, is nicknamed ‘Eric’. It is the most complete opalised plesiosaur skeleton (and fossil vertebrate) known.
The Return of the Blockley Plesiosaur
In summer 2023 a plesiosaur skeleton was offered at auction by Sotheby’s that may have looked familiar. This notable specimen is the ‘Blockley Plesiosaur’, originally offered at auction by Sotheby’s in 2010. This is a potentially significant specimen so I’m flagging it up to briefly discuss the provenance, history, and taxonomic identity of this curious skeleton.
Nakonanectes
Nakonanectes is a small elasmosaurid plesiosaur from the Bearpaw Shale of Montana, USA. It is known from a single moderately complete specimen including a particularly fine skull. It has a relatively short neck for an elasmosaur consisting of ‘only’ 39-42 neck vertebrae.
Mauisaurus
Woolungasaurus
Sachs (2004) regarded ‘Woolungasaurus‘ as a junior synonym of Styxosaurus and assigned the type species (‘W. glendowerensis‘) to that genus under the new combination ‘Styxosaurus glendoweresnis‘.
Vectocleidus
The name Vectocleidus was erected by Benson et al. (2012b) for a leptocleidid from the Early Cretaceous of the Isle of Wight, UK. The type specimen was previously referred to Leptocleidus sp.
Vectocleidus can be confidently identified as a leptocleidid but its position within the clade is unstable (Benson et al.