''Morenosaurus'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of plesiosaur from the

Cretaceous 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 ...

of what is now

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

is ''Morenosaurus stocki'', first named by Samuel Welles in 1943, in honor of Dr.

Chester Stock Chester Stock (28 January 1892 – 7 December 1950) was an American paleontologist who specialized in the Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the La Brea Tar Pits, Rancho La Brea tar pits. He served as a professor of geology at the California Institut ...

.Hilton, Richard P., ''Dinosaurs and Other Mesozoic Animals of California'', University of California Press, Berkeley 2003 , at page 105 The species was found by Robert Wallace and

Arthur Drescher Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more wi ...

in the Panoche Hills region of

Fresno County Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most populous city in Cal ...

. The skeleton they found was fairly complete, and lacked only the head and parts of the neck and paddles; the preserved portion of the trunk and tail is long. The skeleton was originally mounted at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

but is now in the

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the largest natural and historical museum in the western United States. Its collections include nearly 35 million specimens and artifacts and cover 4.5 billion years of history. This large coll ...

. ''Morenosaurus'' may have been similar to ''

Elasmosaurus ''Elasmosaurus'' (;) is a genus of plesiosaur that lived in North America during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, about 80.5million years ago. The first specimen was discovered in 1867 near Fort Wallace, Kansas, US, and was se ...

'' or ''

Thalassomedon ''Thalassomedon'' (from Greek, ''thalassa'', "sea" and Greek, ''medon'', "lord" or "ruler", meaning "sea lord") is a genus of plesiosaur, named by Welles in 1943. Description ''Thalassomedon'' is among the largest elasmosaurids, with a total ...

'', but studies in the early 2000s indicated that the

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 preserved ...

s were too scrappy to identify to the family level.

References

* Sepkoski, J.J. (2002). A compendium of fossil marine animal genera. ''Bulletins of American Paleontology'' 363: 1-560. * Drunkenmiller, Patrick S. and Russell, Anthony P. (2006)
A new elasmosaurid plesiosaur (Reptilia: Sauropterygia) from the Lower Cretaceous Clearwater Formation, northeastern Alberta, Canada.
''Paludicola'' 5 (4): 184-199.

External links

''Morenosaurus''
from the PaleoBiology Database

at the Natural History Museum {{Taxonbar, from=Q6911404 Late Cretaceous plesiosaurs of North America Elasmosaurids Taxa named by Samuel Paul Welles Sauropterygian genera

See also

References

External links