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Pneumatoarthrus
''Pneumatoarthrus'' is an extinct genus of sea turtle known from the Late Cretaceous (early Maastrichtian) Mount Laurel Formation of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Only a single species, ''P. peloreus'', is known. Taxonomy The holotype of ''Pneumatoarthrus'', ANSP 9225, was originally identified as a sacrum belonging to '' Hadrosaurus'' by Joseph Leidy in an 1865 monograph on Cretaceous reptiles from the US.Leidy, 1865. Memoir on the extinct reptiles of the Cretaceous formations of the United States. ''Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge''. 14(6), 135 pp. Edward Drinker Cope later identified it belonging to a dinosaur more closely related to '' Anchisaurus'', '' Efraasia'', and '' Clepsysaurus'' than to '' Dryptosaurus'' and '' Ornithopsis'',Cope, 1870. Observations on the Reptilia of the Triassic formations of the Atlantic region of the United States. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 11, 444-446. and in his 1872 description of the sea turtle ''Protostega ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protostegidae
Protostegidae is a family of extinct marine turtles that lived during the Cretaceous period. The family includes some of the largest sea turtles that ever existed. The largest, '' Archelon'', had a head long. Like most sea turtles, they had flattened bodies and flippers for front appendages; protostegids had minimal shells like leatherback turtles of modern times. Anatomy As some of the first marine turtles, the protostegids set the general body plan for future species of sea turtles. They had a generally depressed turtle body plan, complete with four limbs, a short tail, and a large head at the end of a relatively short neck. Like other sea turtles, they possessed oar-like front appendages especially evolved for swimming in the open ocean. Similar to the still-extant, possibly closely related Dermochelyidae, protostegids possessed extremely reduced carapaces. Some specimens had skeletal protrusions from their ribs almost wrapping around their bodies in place of a complete s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the Latin word for the white limestone known as chalk. The chalk of northern France and the white cliffs of south-eastern England date from the Cretaceous Period. Climate During the Late Cretaceous, the climate was warmer than present, although throughout the period a cooling trend is evident. The tropics became restricted to equatorial regions and northern latitudes experienced markedly more seasonal climatic conditions. Geography Due to plate tectonics, the Americas were gradually moving westward, causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand. The Western Interior Seaway divided North America into eastern and western halves; Appalachia and Laramidia. India maintained a northward course towards Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clepsysaurus
''Clepsysaurus'' is a dubious genus of extinct archosaur described by Isaac Lea in 1851 from remains discovered in the Carnian Passaic Formation of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Two species are known: ''C. pennsylvanicus'' (the type species) and ''C. veatleianus''. The holotype of ''C. pennsylvanicus'', ANSP 9526, 9555-71, 9594-5, consists of teeth, ribs and vertebrae, while the holotype of ''C. veatleianus'', AMNH 2331, consists of a single tooth, with AMNH 2330, a tooth, as a referred specimen. Other specimens of ''C. pennsylvanicus'' are known, including ANSP 15071 (a left anterior dentary with 23 teeth, a right dentary with 30 teeth and a portion of the right temporal region) and AMNH 2337 (a single tooth). ''Clepsysaurus'' was traditionally classed as a sauropodomorph, but more recent studies indicate that it was either a dubious basal archosaur or a member of the Phytosauria. ''Clepsysaurus'' was eventually seen as a synonym of either the dubious archosaur ''Palaeosaurus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Turtle Genera
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretaceous Turtles Of North America
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic. The name is derived from the Latin ''creta'', " chalk", which is abundant in the latter half of the period. It is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation ''Kreide''. The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites, and rudists, while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. The world was ice free, and forests extended to the poles. During this time, new groups of mammals and birds appeared. During the Early Cretaceous, flowering plants appeared and began to rapidly diversify, becoming the dominant group of plants across the Ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protostega
''Protostega'' ('first roof') is an extinct genus of sea turtle containing a single species, ''Protostega gigas''. Its fossil remains have been found in the Smoky Hill Chalk formation of western Kansas (''Hesperornis'' zone, dated to 83.5 million years agoCarpenter, K. (2003). "Vertebrate Biostratigraphy of the Smoky Hill Chalk (Niobrara Formation) and the Sharon Springs Member (Pierre Shale)." ''High-Resolution Approaches in Stratigraphic Paleontology'', 21: 421-437. ), time-equivalent beds of the Mooreville Chalk Formation of Alabama and Campanian beds of the Rybushka Formation (Saratov Oblast, Russia). Fossil specimens of this species were first collected in 1871, and named by Edward Drinker Cope in 1872. With a total length of , it is the second-largest sea turtle that ever lived, second only to the giant ''Archelon'', and one of the three largest turtle of all time along ''Archelon'' and ''Gigantatypus''. Discovery and History The first known ''Protostega'' specim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornithopsis
''Ornithopsis'' (meaning "bird-likeness") was a medium-sized Early Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur, from England. The type species, which is the only species seen as valid today, is ''O. hulkei''. History of discovery Gideon Algernon Mantell described many fossils that had been previously collected from the Tilgate Forest of the Early Cretaceous Wealden Formation in his 1833 paper on the geology of southeast England, including a bone he considered to be the of ''Iguanodon'', otherwise only known definitively from teeth that had been found in the area since 1822. The bone was redescribed by Richard Owen in 1854, who reaffirmed its referral as a quadrate of ''Iguanodon'', but also suggested it could be the same bone of ''Streptospondylus'' or ''Cetiosaurus'' as it was not directly associated with the characteristic teeth of ''Iguanodon''. This specimen is stored as British Museum of Natural History R2239, having been purchased from Mantell in 1838. BMNH R28632, a similar bone to B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dryptosaurus
''Dryptosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of tyrannosauroid that lived approximately 67 million years ago (mya) during the latter part of the Cretaceous period, New Jersey. ''Dryptosaurus'' was a large, bipedal, ground-dwelling carnivore, that grow up to long and weigh up to . Although largely unknown now outside of academic circles, a famous painting of the genus by Charles R. Knight made ''Dryptosaurus'' one of the more widely known dinosaurs of its time, in spite of its poor fossil record. First described by Edward Drinker Cope in 1866 and later renamed by Othniel C. Marsh in 1877, ''Dryptosaurus'' is among the first theropod dinosaurs known to science. Discovery and species Prior to the discovery of ''Dryptosaurus'' in 1866, New World theropods were known only from some isolated theropod teeth discovered in Montana by Joseph Leidy in 1856. The discovery of this genus gave North American paleontologists the opportunity to observe an articulated, albeit incomplete, theropod skeleton. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Efraasia
''Efraasia'' (pronounced "E-FRAHS-ee-A") is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur. It was a herbivore which lived during the middle Norian stage of the Late Triassic, around 210 million years ago, in what is now Germany. It was named in 1973 after Eberhard Fraas, who during the early twentieth century collected what were the original type specimens. The specimens were at first assigned to three already existing genera and so became divided among three separate species: ''Teratosaurus minor'', ''Sellosaurus fraasi'' and ''Paleosaurus diagnosticus''. In 2003 these were combined into a single valid species: ''Efraasia minor''. ''Efraasia'' was a lightly built, medium-sized sauropodomorph, about long. Discovery and naming ''Efraasia'' has had a complicated taxonomic history involving several genera and species. Material now known under ''Efraasia'' first came to light after Albert Burrer, ''Hofsteinmetzmeister'' ("Court master stonemason") at Maulbronn, in 1902 began to ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, he eventually acquiesced to his son's scientific aspirations. Cope married his cousin and had one child; the family moved from Philadelphia to Haddonfield, New Jersey, although Cope would maintain a residence and museum in Philadelphia in his later years. Cope had little formal scientific training, and he eschewed a teaching position for field work. He made regular trips to the American West, prospecting in the 1870s and 1880s, often as a member of United States Geological Survey teams. A personal feud between Cope and paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh led to a period of intense fossil-finding competit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anchisaurus
''Anchisaurus'' is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur. It lived during the Early Jurassic Period, and its fossils have been found in the red sandstone of the Portland Formation, Northeastern United States, which was deposited from the Hettangian age into the Sinemurian age, between about 200 and 195 million years ago.Olsen, P.E. (2002)STRATIGRAPHY AND AGE OF THE EARLY JURASSIC PORTLAND FORMATION OF CONNECTICUT AND MASSACHUSETTS: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE TIME SCALE OF THE EARLY JURASSIC. Session No. 26 Studies of Depositional Systems and Sedimentary Rocks: In Honor of Edward Scudder Belt. 37th Annual Meeting (March 25–27, 2002). Until recently it was classed as a member of Prosauropoda. The genus name ''Anchisaurus'' comes from the Greek ''αγχι'' (') ; "near, close" + Greek ('); "lizard". ''Anchisaurus'' was coined as a replacement name for "''Amphisaurus''", which was itself a replacement name for Hitchcock's "''Megadactylus''", both of which had already been used for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hadrosaurus
''Hadrosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of hadrosaurid ornithopod dinosaurs that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous Period in what is now the Woodbury Formation about 80 million to 78 million years ago. The holotype specimen was found in fluvial marine sedimentation, meaning that the corpse of the animal was transported by a river and washed out to sea. They were large animals ranging from and . Most of the preserved elements are very robust, unusual traits in hadrosaurs. ''Hadrosaurus'' were ponderously-built animals equipped with keratinous beaks for cropping foliage and a specialized and complex dentition for food processing. ''Hadrosaurus foulkii'', the only species in this genus, is known from a single specimen consisting of much of the skeleton and parts of the skull. The specimen was collected in 1858 from the Woodbury Formation in New Jersey, US, representing the first dinosaur species known from more than isolated teeth to be identified in North America. Using r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
