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Pliosauroids
Pliosauroidea is an extinct clade of plesiosaurs, known from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous. They are best known for the subclade Thalassophonea, which contained crocodile-like short-necked forms with large heads and massive toothed jaws, commonly known as pliosaurs. More primitive non-thalassophonean pliosauroids resembled pleisiosaurs in possessing relatively long necks and smaller heads. They originally included only members of the family Pliosauridae, of the order Plesiosauria, but several other genera and families are now also included, the number and details of which vary according to the classification used. The distinguishing characteristics are a short neck and an elongated head, with larger hind flippers compared to the fore flippers, the opposite of the plesiosaurs. They were carnivorous and their long and powerful jaws carried many sharp, conical teeth. Pliosaurs range from 4 to 15 metres and more in length. Their prey may have included fish, shark ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Jurassic
The Early Jurassic Epoch (geology), Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic series (stratigraphy), Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, 201.3 Ma (million years ago), and ends at the start of the Middle Jurassic 174.1 Ma. Certain rocks of marine origin of this age in Europe are called "Lias Group, Lias" and that name was used for the period, as well, in 19th-century geology. In southern Germany rocks of this age are called Black Jurassic. Origin of the name Lias There are two possible origins for the name Lias: the first reason is it was taken by a geologist from an England, English quarryman's dialect pronunciation of the word "layers"; secondly, sloops from north Cornwall, Cornish ports such as Bude would sail across the Bristol Channel to the Vale of Glamorgan to load up with rock from coastal limestone quarries (lias limestone from S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of living fish species are ray-finned fish, belonging to the class Actinopterygii, with around 99% of those being teleosts. The earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts. Fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators. The first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many (such as sharks) became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. Comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, it shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a Megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with Deserts of Australia, deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately Early human migrations#Nearby Oceania, 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area.Sayre, April Pulley (1999), ''Africa'', Twenty-First Century Books. . With billion people as of , it accounts for about of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Afric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jørn Hurum
Jørn Harald Hurum (born November 4, 1967) is a Norwegian paleontologist and popularizer of science. He is a vertebrate paleontologist and holds an Associate Professor position at the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo. He has studied dinosaurs, primitive mammals and plesiosaurs. Media Hurum is known as a popularizer of science with a high media profile. He is the author of the book ''Menneskets utvikling'' ("The Evolution of Man") and the host of the segment ''Jørns hjørne'' ("Jørn's Corner") on the popular-science program "Newton" on Norwegian television. He also co-hosts the radio program ''Hurum og Ødegaard'' ("Hurum and Ødegaard") with astrophysicist Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard on Norwegian radio. In 2001, Hurum was awarded Oslo University's "Formidlingspris," an award for the popularization of science, which he shared with Hans Arne Nakrem and Geir Søli. He was awarded the prize again in 2009 for his work publicizing "Ida", the ''Darwinius'' find. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macroplata
''Macroplata'' (meaning "big plate") is an extinct genus of Early Jurassic rhomaleosaurid plesiosaur which grew up to in length and weighed up to . Like other plesiosaurs, ''Macroplata'' probably lived on a diet of fish, using its sharp needle-like teeth to catch prey. Its shoulder bones were fairly large, indicating a powerful forward stroke for fast swimming. ''Macroplata'' also had a relatively long neck, twice the length of the skull, in contrast to pliosaurs. A different species, ''Macroplata longirostris'' (previously called ''Plesiosaurus longirostris''), which lived somewhat later, during the Toarcian stage, was also included in the genus; however, in 2011, Benson ''et al.'' reclassified it as a pliosaurid in the genus '' Hauffiosaurus'', ''H. longirostris''. Description ''Macroplata'' bore an elongated skull, with more than half of its cranial length taken up by a roughly triangular snout. The premaxillae (front upper jaw bones) bear six teeth each, with the first being ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peloneustes
''Peloneustes'' (meaning "mud swimmer") is a genus of pliosaurid plesiosaur from the Middle Jurassic of England. Its remains are known from the Peterborough Member of the Oxford Clay Formation, which is Callovian in age. It was originally described as a species of ''Plesiosaurus'' by palaeontologist Harry Govier Seeley in 1896, before being given its own genus by naturalist Richard Lydekker in 1889. While many species have been assigned to ''Peloneustes'', ''P. philarchus'' is currently the only one still considered valid, with the others moved to different genera, considered ''nomina dubia'', or synonymised with ''P. philarchus''. Some of the material formerly assigned to ''P. evansi'' have since been reassigned to ''"Pliosaurus" andrewsi''. ''Peloneustes'' is known from many specimens, including some very complete material. With a total length of , ''Peloneustes'' is not a large pliosaurid. It had a large, triangular skull, which occupied about a fifth of its body length. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhomaleosaurus
''Rhomaleosaurus'' (meaning "strong lizard") is an extinct genus of Early Jurassic ( Toarcian age, about 183 to 175.6 million years ago) rhomaleosaurid pliosauroid known from Northamptonshire and from Yorkshire of the United Kingdom. It was first named by Harry Seeley in 1874 and the type species is ''Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni''. It was one of the earliest large marine reptile predators which hunted in the seas of Mesozoic era, with the type species ''R. cramptoni'' measuring long and weighing . Like other pliosaurs, ''Rhomaleosaurus'' fed on ichthyosaurs, ammonites and other plesiosaurs. Species ''R. cramptoni'' In July 1848, a fossil of a large plesiosaur was unearthed in an Alum quarry at Kettleness, near Whitby, in Yorkshire, England. It was collected from the ''A. bifrons'' ammonite zone of the Whitby Mudstone Formation, dating to the early Toarcian age, about 183 to 180 million years ago. The complete skeleton which preserved the skull, NMING F8785, was kep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliosaurus Macromerus
''Pliosaurus'' (meaning 'more lizard') is an extinct genus of thalassophonean pliosaurid known from the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian stages (Late Jurassic) of Europe and South America. Their diet would have included fish, cephalopods, and marine reptiles. This genus has contained many species in the past but recent reviews found only six (''P. brachydeirus'', ''P. carpenteri'', ''P. funkei'', ''P. kevani'', ''P. rossicus'' and ''P. westburyensis'') to be valid, while the validity of two additional species awaits a petition to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Currently, ''P. brachyspondylus'' and ''P. macromerus'' are considered dubious, while ''P. portentificus'' is considered undiagnostic. Most species of ''Pliosaurus'' reached in length and in body mass, while ''P. rossicus'' and ''P. funkei'' may have reached or even exceeded in length and in body mass, being the largest plesiosaurs of all time. Species of this genus are differentiated from other pliosaurids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kronosaurus
''Kronosaurus'' ( ; meaning "lizard of Kronos") is a potentially dubious genus of extinct short-necked pliosaur. With an estimated length of , it was among the largest pliosaurs, and is named after the leader of the Greek Titans, Kronos. It lived in the Early Cretaceous period ( Aptian to Late Albian).Hampe O. 1992. Ein großwüchsiger Pliosauride (Reptilia: Plesiosauria) aus der Unterkreide (oberes Aptium) von Kolumbien. ''Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg'' 145: 1–32.Kear BP. 2003Cretaceous marine reptiles of Australia: a review of taxonomy and distribution ''Cretaceous Research'' 24: 277–303. Fossil material has been recovered from the Toolebuc Formation (middle to late Albian) and Wallumbilla Formations (Aptian) of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia. Discovery In 1899, Andrew Crombie of Hughenden discovered a "scrap of bone" containing six conical teeth, and gave this fragmentary fossil to the Queensland Museum. Twenty-five years later, then-direct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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