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Borealonectes

Say it: BOR-ee-ah-lo-NEK-teez

Name means: “northern swimmer”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursMiddle JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Borealonectes was a marine reptile that swam in the cold Arctic seas 165 million years ago. It had a long neck and four flippers to paddle through the water. It was a fierce hunter with sharp teeth.1 2

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

165 to 162 million years ago3

Middle Jurassic

Fossils found in

Melville Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Canada1 3

Food

Meat3 1

Length

3 to 4 m1

estimated from the partial skeleton

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 4 dogs nose to tailas long as 22 bananas end to end

How big was Borealonectes compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Borealonectes is one of the few plesiosaurs known from the Jurassic of North America.1

It was the first marine reptile from the Canadian Arctic with a well-preserved skull.1 2

The only known fossil includes a skull, neck vertebrae, and the right forelimb.1

Borealonectes lived during the Middle Jurassic, about 165 to 161 million years ago.1 3

It belonged to a group called rhomaleosaurids, which were short-necked plesiosaurs.1 2

The name Borealonectes means 'northern swimmer' in Greek.1

AI-made picture of Borealonectes — An AI-made picture of how Borealonectes might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Borealonectes
Named by: Sato and Wu 20083
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Rhomaleosauridae3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 165 to 162 million years (Callovian)3
Rock formations: Hiccles Cove3
Countries: Canada3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Borealonectes was named in 2008 by Tamaki Sato and Xiao-Chun Wu based on a partial skeleton found in the Hiccles Cove Formation on Melville Island, Canada.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how big Borealonectes grew, because only one partial skeleton has been found.1

Where the facts come from

Borealonectes (en.wikipedia.org)
A new Jurassic pliosaur from Melville Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago (cdnsciencepub.com)
Borealonectes in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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