''Arminisaurus'' (meaning "lizard of

Arminius Arminius (; 18/17 BC–AD 21) was a chieftain of the Germanic peoples, Germanic Cherusci tribe who is best known for commanding an alliance of Germanic tribes at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, in which three Roman legions under th ...

") is a genus of pliosaurid

plesiosaur The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an Order (biology), order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period (geology), Period, possibly in the Rhaetian st ...

that lived during the

Lower Jurassic The Early Jurassic Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic 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&nb ...

in present-day

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. With '' Westphaliasaurus'' and '' Cryonectes'', ''Arminisaurus'' is only the third

ian

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

that was described from the

Pliensbachian The Pliensbachian is an age of the geologic timescale and stage in the stratigraphic column. It is part of the Early or Lower Jurassic Epoch or Series and spans the time between 192.9 ±0.3 Ma and 184.2 ±0.3 Ma (million years ago). The Plie ...

stage. The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

and only known specimen is a fragmentary skeleton (about 40 percent complete), comprising an incomplete lower jaw, teeth, vertebrae and elements from the pectoral girdle and the paddles. The animal had an estimated body length of . Arminisaurus_schuberti_lower_jaw

Discovery and naming

The holotype was discovered in the early 1980s by the

Hannover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

-based

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

collector Lothar Schulz in the now abandoned clay pit Beukenhorst II, located in the

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region () of Detmold (region), Detmold and the L ...

district of Jöllenbeck. The specimen was later given to amateur

palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Siegfried Schubert who transferred it to the Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld in 2015 ( accession number: NAMU ES/jl 36052). Arminisaurus_schuberti_scapula

''Arminisaurus schuberti'' was described in 2018 by Sven Sachs and Benjamin Kear. The generic name ''Arminisaurus'' refers to

, chieftain of the

Cherusci The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germania in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered thems ...

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

who defeated three

Roman legion The Roman legion (, ) was the largest military List of military legions, unit of the Roman army, composed of Roman citizenship, Roman citizens serving as legionary, legionaries. During the Roman Republic the manipular legion comprised 4,200 i ...

s in the

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, also called the Varus Disaster or Varian Disaster () by Ancient Rome, Roman historians, was a major battle fought between an alliance of Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire between September 8 and 11, 9&nbs ...

in 9 AD and is a homage to the region where the specimen was found. The species name ''schuberti'' honours Siegfried Schubert for his contributions (including numerous scientific publications), enhancing the knowledge of the geology of the

region.

Classification

A cladistic analysis found ''Arminisaurus schuberti'' to be a member of the family

Pliosauridae Pliosauridae is a family of plesiosaurian marine reptiles from the Latest Triassic to the early Late Cretaceous ( Rhaetian to Turonian stages). The family is more inclusive than the archetypal short-necked large headed species that are placed ...

, a globally distributed plesiosaurian clade that is known from the Early Jurassic to the early Late Cretaceous. ''Arminisaurus'' was a basal

pliosaur 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 toot ...

id and differs from other members of the

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

by a combination of characters found in the mandible, the neck vertebrae and the scapula. These characters are shared with the

ian group Leptocleidia that occurred about 50 million years later in time. The following cladogram by Sachs and Kear in 2017 shows the presumed relationships with related pliosaurids:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q42350370 Pliosauridae Jurassic plesiosaurs Jurassic plesiosaurs of Europe Early Jurassic plesiosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2017 Sauropterygian genera