Pantosaurus
| Pantosaurus Temporal range: Late Jurassic,
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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | †Sauropterygia |
| Order: | †Plesiosauria |
| Family: | †Cryptoclididae |
| Genus: | †Pantosaurus Marsh, 1893 |
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Pantosaurus ("all lizard") is an
carpals, a fragment of the coracoid, and several isolated cervical vertebrae from the Upper Member of the Sundance Formation. Other material includes USNM 536963, USNM 536965, UW 3, UW 5544 and UW 15938.[2]
Description
Pantosaurus possesses between 35 and 40 cervical vertebrae, which are very similar in proportion and morphology to those of Muraenosaurus leedsii from the Oxford Clay Formation (Callovian, Middle Jurassic) of England. The forelimb of Pantosaurus however can be differentiated from that of Muraenosaurus, such as the relatively large size of the radius and the corresponding humerus-radius articulation. No Pantosaurus cranial material has yet been discovered.[1]
Palaeobiology
The discovery of an partially digested embryonic ichthyosaur (probably Baptanodon) inside of a fossil referable to Pantosaurus striatus was the first evidence of the consumption of ichthyosaurs by plesiosaurs.[3]
See also
References
- ^ a b O'Keefe FR & Wahl W. (2003). "Current taxonomic status of the plesiosaur Pantosaurus striatus from the Upper Jurassic Sundance Formation, Wyoming". Paludicola. 4 (2): 37–46.
- ^ Benjamin C. Wilhelm (2010). Novel anatomy of cryptoclidid plesiosaurs with comments on axial locomotion (M.Sc. thesis). Huntington, West Virginia: Marshall University. pp. 1–76.
- S2CID 40467872.