''Eretmosaurus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus of

plesiosaur The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, ''plesios'', meaning "near to" and ''sauros'', meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared ...

Taxonomic history

''Eretmosaurus'' was coined by Harry Govier Seeley for ''Plesiosaurus rugosus'' Owen, 1840.

Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. Owe ...

had coined the name ''P. rugosus'' for numerous vertebrae from the Early Jurassic Blue Lias of Gloucestershire and other unspecified locations in the UK. Later, Owen described a headless skeleton (NHMUK 14435) that he assigned to ''P. rugosus'',R. Owen. 1865. A monograph of the fossil Reptilia of the Liassic formations. Part I, Sauropterygia. Palaeontographical Society Monographs 17(75):1-40 and Seeley used NHMUK 14435 as the basis for coining a new genus for this species.

References

Plesiosauroids Early Jurassic plesiosaurs of Europe Jurassic England Fossil taxa described in 1874 Taxa named by Harry Seeley Sauropterygian genera {{plesiosaur-stub

Taxonomic history

See also

References