Microcleidus
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Microcleidus is an extinct genus of sauropterygian reptile belonging to the Plesiosauroidea. The species has 40 neck vertebrae and a short tail of 28 vertebrae. Fossils of the genus have been found in France, the Posidonia Shale in Germany and Luxembourg, and the Alum Shale Formation of England.
Microcleidus is an extinct genus of sauropterygian reptile belonging to the Plesiosauroidea. The species has 40 neck vertebrae and a short tail of 28 vertebrae. Fossils of the genus have been found in France, the Posidonia Shale in Germany and Luxembourg, and the Alum Shale Formation of England.
Description
The type species, M. homalospondylus, was the largest, measuring long and weighing . Other species were smaller: M. tournemirensis was about long and weighed , and M. melusinae was about long and weighed .
Classification
]] Species include: Microcleidus homalospondylus (Owen 1865) and Microcleidus macropterus (Seeley 1865). Occitanosaurus tournemirensis (originally "Plesiosaurus" tournemirensis), was named by Sciau et al. in 1990, based on a nearly complete skeleton of an animal approximately 4 meters (13 ft) long. It was later found to be a species of Microcleidus. The following cladogram follows an analysis by Ketchum & Benson, 2011.
External links
Microcleidus macropterus, a Lower Jurassic plesiosaur from the Yorkshire Lias at Sachs Vertebrate Palaeontology Research
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1352617772 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.