''Delphinosaurus'' is a dubious genus of

ophthalmosaurid Ophthalmosauridae is an extinct family of thunnosaur ichthyosaurs from the Middle Jurassic to the early Late Cretaceous (Bajocian - Cenomanian) worldwide. Almost all ichthyosaurs from the Middle Jurassic onwards belong to the family, until the ex ...

ichthyosaur Ichthyosaurs (Ancient Greek for "fish lizard" – and ) are large extinct marine reptiles. Ichthyosaurs belong to the order known as Ichthyosauria or Ichthyopterygia ('fish flippers' – a designation introduced by Sir Richard Owen in 1842, altho ...

from Albian-

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

deposits in the Kursk region of

European European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and possibly also the

Muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; french: calcaire coquillier) is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 million ye ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Merriam (1905) erected ''Delphinosaurus'' for the Late Triassic ichthyosaur ''Shastasaurus perrini'' from California, but because ''Delphinosaurus'' was already in use, the replacement name ''

Californosaurus ''Californosaurus'' ('California lizard') is an extinct genus of ichthyosaur, an extinct marine reptile, from the Lower Hosselkus Limestone (Carnian, Late Triassic) of California. Taxonomy Merriam (1902) described it as a new species of ''Shas ...

'' was erected.

Classification

Eichwald (1853) erected ''Delphinosaurus'' for eight mandible fragments, twelve teeth, one rib, two centra, one humerus and one epipodial from the iron-rich sands of the Kursk area dating to the Albian–Cenomanian boundary. He classified the remains as those of amphibians, because of the presence of dolphin and reptile features, suggesting an intermediate form in between these groups, hence the name. Later, however, he recognized ''Delphinosaurus'' as being an ichthyosaur in an 1865 monograph. In the supplementary material for their paper explaining the extinction of ichthyosaurs, Fischer et al. (2016) treated ''Delphinosaurus'' as a dubious genus of ophthalmosaurid, raising the possibility that the hypodigm for ''D. kiprijanoffi'' is composite due to some teeth resembling ''

Sisteronia ''Sisteronia'' is an extinct genus of platypterygiine ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur known from the 'middle' Cretaceous of southeastern England and southeastern France. It contains a single species, ''Sisteronia seeleyi''. Discovery ''Sisteronia' ...

'', and the humerus being morphologically distinct from ''Sisteronia''.

References

Early Cretaceous ichthyosaurs Early Cretaceous reptiles of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1853 {{cretaceous-reptile-stub

Classification

See also

References