Aphrosaurus

Aphrosaurus is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Maastrichtian. The type species is Aphrosaurus furlongi (LACM 2748), named by Welles in 1943. The holotype specimen was discovered in the Moreno Formation in Fresno County, California in 1939 by rancher Frank C. Piava. A second specimen - LACM 2832 - was also found in the same formation and initially diagnosed as a juvenile of the same species, but has since been removed from the genus.

Aphrosaurus is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Maastrichtian. The type species is Aphrosaurus furlongi (LACM 2748), named by Welles in 1943. The holotype specimen was discovered in the Moreno Formation in Fresno County, California in 1939 by rancher Frank C. Piava. A second specimen - LACM 2832 - was also found in the same formation and initially diagnosed as a juvenile of the same species, but has since been removed from the genus. ==Description== ]] Aphrosaurus was a large, highly derived plesiosaur. A 2005 study by O'Keefe et al. comparing the body size and proportions of plesiosaurs across time show that Aphrosaurus, like other late-Cretaceous plesiosaurs, was comparatively large, and a 2001 study also by O'Keefe comparing flipper aspect ratio with equivalent wing proportions on birds and planes indicate a gliding, long-distance type of travel with low agility. Welles described it as "likely less active than Morenosaurus." Like most plesiosauromorphs, Aphrosaurus probably ate a diet of relatively small prey that were then ground up by gastroliths. A 2008 study by Zammit et al. using a model of the complete vertebral column and neck indicated that while Aphrosaurus and similar plesiosaurs would not have been able to create a "swan curve" of the neck to strike, other feeding methods, including benthic grazing, shallow horizontal curving for ambush, and horizontal or vertical shearing during active pursuit would have been possible. Based on the fossil assemblage of the Moreno Formation, Aphrosaurus shared the waters of the Late-Cretaceous Pacific with a diverse spread of mosasaurs, turtles, and a variety of other plesiosaurs: Morenosaurus, Fresnosaurus, and Hydrotherosaurus, the latter two of which were larger than Aphrosaurus. Notably, five different genera of mosasaurs, mostly mosasaurines, have been discovered in the Moreno Formation. The lack of plioplatocarpines was hypothesized by Lindgren and Schulp in 2010 to indicate an environment as an open ocean with high piscivore competition for resources. Similar genera of mosasaurs in both the Moreno Formation and Western Interior Seaway indicates free exchange of species between both environments. Within the mostly morphologically similar elasmosaurids, Aphrosaurus can be differentiated by the presence of a deepened ventral notch along the centra of the cervical vertebrae, and a wide, dorsal-ventrally compressed interclavicle-clavicle complex that lacks a ridge along the sternum. ==Classification== The Elasmosaurid clade is highly unstable. However, current phylogenetic studies have recovered Aphrosaurus in a highly nested position within the Weddellonectia clade, but outside of the Aristonectinae with the filter-feeding Aristonectes. ==See also== Timeline of plesiosaur research List of plesiosaur genera ==External links== Aphrosaurus in the Paleobiology Database Aphrosaurus in the Plesiosaur Site

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