Category «Plesiosauroidea»

Plesiosaurus macrocephalus

The holotype specimen (NHMUK PV R 1336) was first and last described by Owen, 1840. ‘Plesiosaurus’ macrocephalus is probably a juvenile rhomaleosaurid, and certainly doesn’t belong to the genus Plesiosaurus. However, pending revision of the taxon and referral to a different or other existing genus, it is still named ‘Plesiosaurus‘, following Owen.

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‘. However, this placement was unsupported by unambiguous apomorphic characters (Kear 2007). Since ‘Woolungasaurus‘ has no unique diagnostic characters, Kear (2005) reassigned all specimens of it to Elasmosauridae indet. (indeterminate …

Abyssosaurus

Abyssosaurus is a derived cryptoclidid plesiosaur from the Upper Hauterivian (Lower Cretaceous) of the Menya River, Chuvashia, Russia. It was named and described in 2011 by Alexander Yu Berezin (Berezin 2011). A partial skull associated with the holotype specimen (MChEIO, no. PM/1) was not described in the original 2011 paper but was discovered later in …