Eretmosaurus

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Extinct genus of reptiles

title: "Eretmosaurus" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["plesiosauroids", "early-jurassic-plesiosaurs-of-europe", "jurassic-england", "fossil-taxa-described-in-1874", "taxa-named-by-harry-seeley", "sauropterygian-genera"] description: "Extinct genus of reptiles" topic_path: "geography/united-kingdom" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eretmosaurus" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Extinct genus of reptiles ::

| name = Eretmosaurus | fossil_range = Early - Middle Jurassic, | image = Eretmosaurus rugosus.JPG | image_caption = Neotype specimen of E. rugosus | taxon = Eretmosaurus | authority = Seeley, 1874 | type_species = Eretmosaurus rugosus | type_species_authority = Seeley, 1874 | subdivision_ranks = Other species | subdivision = *E. dubius Blake in Tate & Blake, 1876 | synonyms = *Erethmosaurus von Huene, 1956

History

''Eretmosaurus rugosus''

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Eretmosaurus.jpg" caption="1870}} illustration of the neotype of ''E. rugosus''"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Eretmosaurus_rugosus.png" caption="Restoration of ''E. rugosus''"] ::

The holotype of E. rugosus has no known recorded specimen number and it consists of vertebrae, girdles, and limb bones discovered in Granby, Nottinghamshire where the Asteroceras obtusum zone of the Lower Lias Formation outcrops.

Specimen BRSMB Cb 2458 was also assigned to the species by Owen (1840). This specimen later became the syntype and it consisted of several vertebrae that had been discovered at different locations in the Blue Lias Formation in Gloucestershire across Aust Cliff.

Owen (1840) was the first to describe the specimens, which were named as Plesiosaurus rugosus. Later, Owen (1865) described a headless skeleton discovered in the Ammonites stellaris zone of the Blue Lias at Granby, Nottinghamshire (NHMUK 14435) that he assigned to P. rugosus, and Seeley used NHMUK 14435 as the basis for naming Eretmosaurus rugosus in 1874.

As BRSMB Cb 2458 was not diagnostic and was lost by 1940, a petition was filed with the ICZN over the holotype by Brown and Bardet (1994), and NHMUK 14435 was allocated as the official neotype in 1996.

A fragmentary specimen of Eretmosaurus rugosus has also been identified from the Middle Jurassic of Siberia by Menner (1992).

''Eretmosaurus dubius''

A partial skull and skeleton belonging to a plesiosaur was discovered in the Harpoceras faleifer zone, Whitby, England and it was initially described by Blake & Tate (1876) as a species of Plesiosaurus known as P. dubius. It was later reclassified as a species of Eretmosaurus by Blake in Blake & Tate (1876).

Other species

Benton and Spencer (1995) mentioned a third species of Eretmosaurus: E. macropterus; they rectified this mistake within the same paper by mentioning on page 116 that E. macropterus actually belongs to Microcleidus.

Classification

Eretmosaurus was classified into Rhomaleosauridae by Persson (1963),Persson, P.O. (1963): A revision of the classification of the Plesiosauria, with a synopsis of the stratigraphical and geographical distribution of the group. University of Lunds Årsskrift 59, No. 1, p. 1-57. then into Pliosauridae by Brown (1981), then into Elasmosauridae by Bardet (1995) and Bardet et al. (1999), and most recently into Microcleididae by Benson et al. (2012).

References

References

  1. Menner, V. V.. (1992). "Remains of Plesiosaurs from Middle Jurassic Deposits of Eastern Siberia". Russian Academy of Sciences, Department of Geology, Geophysics, Geochemistry and Mining Sciences, Order of the Red Manner of Labour Geological Institute.
  2. "Eretmosaurus".
  3. R. Owen. (1840). Report on British fossil reptiles. ''Report of the Ninth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Reports on the State of Science'' 43-126
  4. R. Owen. (1865). A monograph of the fossil Reptilia of the Liassic formations. Part I, Sauropterygia. Palaeontographical Society Monographs 17(75):1-40
  5. Seeley, H. G., (1874), Note on some of the generic modifications of the plesiosaurian pectoral arch: ''Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London'', 1874, p. 436-449.
  6. David S. Brown and Nathalie Bardet (1994). ''Plesiosaurus rugosus'' Owen, 1840 (currently ''Eretmosaurus rugosus'', Reptilia, Plesiosauria) proposed designation of a neotype. ''Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature'' 51(3)
  7. David S. Brown and Nathalie Bardet (1996). ''Plesiosaurus rugosus'' Owen, 1840 (currently ''Eretmosaurus rugosus'', Reptilia, Plesiosauria) neotype designated. ''Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature'' 53(1)
  8. Blake, John F.. (1876). "The Yorkshire Lias". [[University of California]].
  9. Benton, M. J. and Spencer, P. S. (1995). Fossil reptiles of Great Britain. Chapman and Hall, London, 386 pp.
  10. Brown, D. S. (1981). The English Upper Jurassic Plesiosauroidea (Reptilia) and a review of the phylogeny and classification of the Plesiosauria. ''Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History): Geology'', 35, (4), 253-347.
  11. Bardet, N. (1995). Evolution et extinction des reptiles marins au cours du Mésozoïque. ''Palaeovertebrata'', 24, 177-283.
  12. Bardet, N.; Godefroit, P.; and Sciau, J. (1999). A new elasmosaurid plesiosaur from the Lower Jurassic of Southern France. ''Palaeontology'', 42, (5), 927-952.
  13. (2012-03-16). "High Diversity, Low Disparity and Small Body Size in Plesiosaurs (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from the Triassic–Jurassic Boundary". PLOS ONE.

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plesiosauroidsearly-jurassic-plesiosaurs-of-europejurassic-englandfossil-taxa-described-in-1874taxa-named-by-harry-seeleysauropterygian-genera