Cryptoclidid plesiosaurs (Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria) from the Upper Jurassic of the Atacama Desert

Otero, Rodrigo A.; Alarcón-Muñoz, Jhonatan; Soto‐Acuña, Sergio; Rojas, Jennyfer; Rojas, Osvaldo; Ortiz, Héctor Joaquín Bolio

doi:10.1080/02724634.2020.1764573

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…From the Callovian onwards, ichthyosaur assemblages overwhelmingly consist of ophthalmosaurids (but see Fischer et al (2013) ), up to the final extinction of ichthyosaurians ( Fischer et al, 2016 ). While diverse ophthalmosaurid assemblages are known by the Kimmeridgian ( Valenciennes, 1861 ; Druckenmiller et al, 2012 ; Arkhangelsky & Zverkov, 2014 ; Zverkov et al, 2015 ; Paparella et al, 2017 ; Moon & Kirton, 2018a ; Delsett et al, 2019 ; Zverkov & Efimov, 2019 ; Barrientos-Lara & Alvarado-Ortega, 2020 ; Campos, Fernández & Herrera, 2020 ; Zverkov & Jacobs, 2020 ), only the closely related Ophthalmosaurus and Baptanodon as well as indeterminate but compatible forms are known in the Callovian–Oxfordian ( Seeley, 1874c ; Marsh, 1895 ; Gilmore, 1902 , 1906 ; Knight, 1903 ; Andrews, 1910b ; Arkhangelsky, 1999 ; Fernández & Iturralde-Vinent, 2000 ; Massare et al, 2006 , 2014 ; Moon & Kirton, 2018b ; Arkhangelsky et al, 2018 ; Otero et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refining the marine reptile turnover at the Early–Middle Jurassic transition

Fischer

Weis

Thuy

2021

PeerJ

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Even though a handful of long-lived reptilian clades dominated Mesozoic marine ecosystems, several biotic turnovers drastically changed the taxonomic composition of these communities. A seemingly slow paced, within-geological period turnover took place across the Early–Middle Jurassic transition. This turnover saw the demise of early neoichthyosaurians, rhomaleosaurid plesiosaurians and early plesiosauroids in favour of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaurians and cryptoclidid and pliosaurid plesiosaurians, clades that will dominate the Late Jurassic and, for two of them, the entire Early Cretaceous as well. The fossil record of this turnover is however extremely poor and this change of dominance appears to be spread across the entire middle Toarcian–Bathonian interval. We describe a series of ichthyosaurian and plesiosaurian specimens from successive geological formations in Luxembourg and Belgium that detail the evolution of marine reptile assemblages across the Early–Middle Jurassic transition within a single area, the Belgo–Luxembourgian sub-basin. These fossils reveal the continuing dominance of large rhomaleosaurid plesiosaurians, microcleidid plesiosaurians and Temnodontosaurus-like ichthyosaurians up to the latest Toarcian, indicating that the structuration of the upper tier of Western Europe marine ecosystems remained essentially constant up to the very end of the Early Jurassic. These fossils also suddenly record ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaurians and cryptoclidid plesiosaurians by the early Bajocian. These results from a geographically-restricted area provide a clearer picture of the shape of the marine reptile turnover occurring at the early–Middle Jurassic transition. This event appears restricted to the sole Aalenian stage, reducing the uncertainty of its duration, at least for ichthyosaurians and plesiosaurians, to 4 instead of 14 million years.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refining the marine reptile turnover at the Early–Middle Jurassic transition

Fischer

Weis

Thuy

2021

PeerJ

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“…Some cryptoclidids travelled through the Carribean Seaway and reached South America during this period (e.g., Muraenosaurus sp. that weighed 985 kg [298]). Cryptoclidid fossils from Kimmeridgian Clay Formation are rather fragmented and incomplete, hiding the disparity of this clade [196].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body reconstruction and size estimation of plesiosaurs

Zhao

2024

Preprint

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Body size is the key to understanding many biological properties. Sizes of extinct animals are usually estimated from body reconstructions since their masses can not be weighed directly. Plesiosaurs were Mesozoic marine reptiles that were diverse in both body plan and size. Attempts to estimate body masses of plesiosaurs were rare in the past two centuries, possibly due to lack of knowledge about their postcranial anatomy and body shapes in life. The burst of plesiosaur studies in the past two decades has greatly expanded our cognition of their physiology, taxonomy, potential behavior and even soft body outlines. Here I present a comprehensive review of relevant knowledge, and propose a uniform set of methodology for rigorous body reconstruction of plesiosaurs. Twenty-two plesiosaur models were constructed under these criteria, and they were subsequently used as samples to find proxies for body mass. It is revealed that multiple skeletal elements are good indicators of plesiosaur size. This study offers scaling equations for size estimation, enabling quick acquisition of body mass information from fragmented fossils. A summary of body size evolution of different plesiosaur clades is also provided.

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“…From the Callovian onwards, ichthyosaur assemblages overwhelmingly consist of ophthalmosaurids (but see Fischer et al (2013)), up to the final extinction of ichthyosaurians (Fischer et al, 2016). While diverse ophthalmosaurid assemblages are known by the Kimmeridgian (Valenciennes, 1861;Druckenmiller et al, 2012;Arkhangelsky & Zverkov, 2014;Zverkov et al, 2015;Paparella et al, 2017;Moon & Kirton, 2018a;Delsett et al, 2019;Zverkov & Efimov, 2019;Barrientos-Lara & Alvarado-Ortega, 2020;Campos, Fernández & Herrera, 2020;Zverkov & Jacobs, 2020), only the closely related Ophthalmosaurus and Baptanodon as well as indeterminate but compatible forms are known in the Callovian-Oxfordian (Seeley, 1874c;Marsh, 1895;Gilmore, 1902Gilmore, , 1906Knight, 1903;Andrews, 1910b;Arkhangelsky, 1999;Fernández & Iturralde-Vinent, 2000;Massare et al, 2006Massare et al, , 2014Moon & Kirton, 2018b;Arkhangelsky et al, 2018;Otero et al, 2020). This leaves a fairly long interval (late Toarcian-latest Callovian) for which the ichthyosaur fossil record is very scarce and geographically dispersed: Sander & Bucher (1993) reported a large cf.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Peer Review #2 of "Refining the marine reptile turnover at the Early–Middle Jurassic transition (v0.2)"

Roberts¹

2021

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Even though a handful of long-lived reptilian clades dominated Mesozoic marine ecosystems, several biotic turnovers drastically changed the taxonomic composition of these communities. A seemingly slow paced, within-geological period turnover took place across the Early-Middle Jurassic transition. This turnover saw the demise of early neoichthyosaurians, rhomaleosaurid plesiosaurians and early plesiosauroids in favour of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaurians and cryptoclidid and pliosaurid plesiosaurians, clades that will dominate the Late Jurassic and, for two of them, the entire Early Cretaceous as well. The fossil record of this turnover is however extremely poor, and this change of dominance appears to be spread across the entire middle Toarcian-Bathonian interval. We describe a series of ichthyosaurian and plesiosaurian specimens from successive geological formations in Luxembourg and Belgium that detail the evolution of marine reptile assemblages across the Early-Middle Jurassic transition within a single area, the Belgo-Luxembourgian sub-basin. These fossils reveal the continuing dominance of large rhomaleosaurid plesiosaurians, microcleidid plesiosaurians, and Temnodontosaurus-like ichthyosaurians up to the latest Toarcian, indicating that the structuration of the upper tier of Western Europe marine ecosystems remained essentially constant up to the very end of the Early Jurassic. These fossils also suddenly record ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaurians and cryptoclidid plesiosaurians by the early Bajocian. These results from a geographicallyrestricted area provide a clearer picture of the shape of the marine reptile turnover occurring at the early-Middle Jurassic transition. This event appears restricted to the sole Aalenian stage, reducing the uncertainty of its duration, at least for ichthyosaurians and plesiosaurians, to 4 instead of 14 million years.

show abstract

Cryptoclidid plesiosaurs (Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria) from the Upper Jurassic of the Atacama Desert

Cited by 7 publications

References 33 publications

Refining the marine reptile turnover at the Early–Middle Jurassic transition

Refining the marine reptile turnover at the Early–Middle Jurassic transition

Body reconstruction and size estimation of plesiosaurs

Peer Review #2 of "Refining the marine reptile turnover at the Early–Middle Jurassic transition (v0.2)"

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