''Serpentisuchops'' (meaning "snaky crocodile-face") is a genus of

polycotylid Polycotylidae is a family of plesiosaurs from the Cretaceous, a sister group to Leptocleididae. Polycotylids first appeared during the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous, before becoming abundant and widespread during the early Late Cretaceou ...

plesiosaur from the late

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 ...

Pierre Shale The Pierre Shale is a geologic formation or series in the Upper Cretaceous which occurs east of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains, from Pembina Valley in Canada to New Mexico. The Pierre Shale was described by Meek and Hayden in 1862 in ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the sou ...

, United States. The genus contains a single species, ''S. pfisterae'', known from a partial skeleton.

Discovery and naming

The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

specimen, GPM5001, was found at the Old Woman Anticline in the upper

in 1995 and brought to the collection of the Paleon Museum in Glenrock. This locality is dated to the lower

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian () is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the latest age (uppermost stage) of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series, the Cretaceous Period or System, and of the Mesozoic Era or Erathem. It spanned the interv ...

age of the upper

period, around 69.59 to 70.00 million years old. It consists of a partial

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...

lower jaw In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

, and

vertebral column The vertebral column, also known as the backbone or spine, is part of the axial skeleton. The vertebral column is the defining characteristic of a vertebrate in which the notochord (a flexible rod of uniform composition) found in all chordate ...

, in addition to the left

ilium Ilium or Ileum may refer to: Places and jurisdictions * Ilion (Asia Minor), former name of Troy * Ilium (Epirus), an ancient city in Epirus, Greece * Ilium, ancient name of Cestria (Epirus), an ancient city in Epirus, Greece * Ilium Building, a ...

and pubis. In 2022, ''Serpentisuchops pfisterae'' was described as a new genus and species of polycotylid plesiosaur by Walter S. Persons, Hallie P. Street, and Amanda Kelley based on these remains. The generic name, "''Serpentisuchops''", is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

words "serpent", meaning "snake", and "suchus" meaning "crocodile", and the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word "ops", meaning "face". The specific name, "''pfisterae''", honors Anna Pfister, on whose land the holotype was discovered.

Description

''Serpentisuchops'' is a medium-sized plesiosaur, reaching over in total body length. It is unusual among derived plesiosaurs, as it has both a long snout and long neck. In contrast,

elasmosaurids Elasmosauridae is an extinct family of plesiosaurs, often called elasmosaurs. They had the longest necks of the plesiosaurs and existed from the Hauterivian to the Maastrichtian stages of the Cretaceous, and represented one of the two groups of ...

and microcleidids had short snouts and elongated necks, and many

pliosaurids Pliosauridae is a family of plesiosaurian marine reptiles from the Latest Triassic to the early Late Cretaceous (Rhaetian to Turonian stages) of Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The family is more inclusive than the archetyp ...

and other polycotylids had long snouts and short necks. This unusual feature may have evolved because of ecological

niche partitioning In ecology, niche differentiation (also known as niche segregation, niche separation and niche partitioning) refers to the process by which competing species use the environment differently in a way that helps them to coexist. The competitive exclu ...

. Its long, flexible neck may have allowed it to more effectively catch prey by striking from the side.

Classification

In their

phylogenetic analyses In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

, Persons, Street & Kelley (2022) recovered ''Serpentisuchops'' as a member of the

Polycotylinae Polycotylidae is a family of plesiosaurs from the Cretaceous, a sister group to Leptocleididae. Polycotylids first appeared during the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous, before becoming abundant and widespread during the early Late Cretaceous ...

clade within

Polycotylidae Polycotylidae is a family of plesiosaurs from the Cretaceous, a sister group to Leptocleididae. Polycotylids first appeared during the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous, before becoming abundant and widespread during the early Late Cretaceou ...

, as the

sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to ''

Trinacromerum ''Trinacromerum'' is an extinct genus of sauropterygian reptile, a member of the polycotylid plesiosaurs. It contains two species, ''T. bentonianum'' and ''T. kirki''. Specimens have been discovered in the Late Cretaceous fossil deposits of what ...

'', ''

Georgiasaurus ''Georgiasaurus'' ("Georgy's lizard"; after V. A. Otschev's father, Georgy Otschev, a geodesist who died shortly before Otschev published the description in 1976) is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Russia. Otschev (or ...

'', and ''

Dolichorhynchops ''Dolichorhynchops'' is an extinct genus of polycotylid plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous (early Turonian to late Campanian stage) of North America, containing three species, ''D. osborni'', ''D. bonneri'' and ''D. tropicensis'', as well as ...

'' spp. The long snout of ''Serpentisuchops'' was likely an ancestral trait, while the long neck was secondarily derived and convergent with ancestral

plesiosaurs 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 ...

, contemporary

, and some more basal members of the Polycotylidae. The

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

below displays the results of their phylogenetic analyses.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q114355683 Late Cretaceous plesiosaurs of North America Fossil taxa described in 2022 Polycotylids Sauropterygian genera