''Thaumatodracon'' is a genus of rhomaleosaurid

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 ...

from the early

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...

found in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. It contains a single species, named by Adam Smith and Ricardo Araújo in 2017.

History

In early 1969, German amateur paleontologist Kurt Wiedenroth at the coast of

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

between

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis ( ) is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and ...

and

Charmouth Charmouth is a village and civil parish in west Dorset, England. The village is situated on the mouth of the River Char, around north-east of Lyme Regis. Dorset County Council estimated that in 2013 the population of the civil parish was 1,31 ...

discovered a plesiosaur skeleton. At first below the Black Ven cliff he found a chalk nodule containing a series of neck vertebrae. Then the skull proved to present as well. Other matrix pieces with a fossil content were removed. He took the fossils back home to Germany where the very same year he sold them to the '' Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover''. The find generated little interest. At the time only a few workers studied British plesiosaurs. The skeleton was stowed in depot and only in the nineties partially prepared by Elijah Widmann. During the early twenty-first century, a strong revival of plesiosaur research manifested itself. Older material was restudied and new genera regularly named. In 2011, plesiosaur experts Ricardo Miguel Nóbrega Araújo and Adam Stuart Smith visited the Hannover museum. Investigating the skeleton, they concluded that it represented a species new to science. In 2012, this was reported in the scientific literature, announcing a special research programme. In 2017, the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

''Thaumatodracon wiedenrothi'' was named and described by Smith and Araùjo. The generic name is derived from Greek ''thauma'', "wonder", and ''drakoon'', "dragon, snake". The name also refers to the older genus name ''Thaumatosaurus'' Meyer 1841; Smith had in 2010 renamed the well-known ''Thaumatosaurus victor'' into the separate genus '' Meyerasaurus''. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours Wiedenroth as discoverer. 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 ...

, NLMH 106.058, originated from the Black Ven Mudstone Member of the

Charmouth Mudstone Formation The Charmouth Mudstone Formation is a Formation (geology), geological formation in England, dating to the Early Jurassic (Sinemurian–Pliensbachian). It forms part of the lower Lias Group. It is most prominently exposed at its type locality in cl ...

dating from the

Sinemurian In the geologic timescale, the Sinemurian is an age (geology), age and stage (stratigraphy), stage in the Early Jurassic, Early or Lower Jurassic epoch (geology), Epoch or series (stratigraphy), Series. It spans the time between 199.5 ±0.3 annu ...

. It consists of a partial skeleton containing the skull, the lower jaws and a complete series of twenty-seven neck vertebrae. Additionally a thirty-five centimetres long block was salvaged, the matrix possibly still surrounding vertebrae or pectoral girdle elements. Hundreds of small fragments are also part of the material. In 2017, all these latter remains had not been prepared yet. The

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

of the species "

Plesiosaurus ''Plesiosaurus'' (Greek: ' ('), near to + ' ('), lizard) is a genus of extinct, large marine sauropterygian reptile that lived during the Early Jurassic. It is known by nearly complete skeletons from the Lias of England. It is distinguishable by ...

" ''macrocephalus'' was long thought to not belong to that genus, and Smith has informally suggested it is instead a juvenile ''Thaumatodracon''. That would make the Crystal Palace model of this species possibly the first attempt to restore a rhomaleosaurid.

Description

''Thaumatodracon'' was relatively large for a rhomaleosaur, measuring approximately 6.5 meters in length, weighing up to two tons and with a skull length of sixty centimetres.(Ed.) 2017. "„Wiedenroths Wunderdrache“: ''Thaumatodracon wiedenrothi'', ein Plesiosaurier aus dem Unterjura von Dorset". ''Der Steinkern'' - Heft 31: 3-5

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q39050752 Rhomaleosauridae Fossil taxa described in 2017 Sauropterygian genera