Dino card No. 0300 of 2,027

Brancasaurus

Say it: BRAN-kah-SORE-us

Name means: “Branca's lizard”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Brancasaurus was a plesiosaur, a long-necked marine reptile that lived in a freshwater lake. It had a small head and a long tail, and swam with four flippers like paddles.1

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

Lived

139 to 137 million years ago5

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany1 5

Food

Meat5 1

Length

3.26 m1

subadult specimen

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 2 bicycles in a rowas long as 18 bananas end to end

How big was Brancasaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Brancasaurus lived in a huge freshwater lake, not the ocean. The lake was sometimes connected to the sea.1

Its neck bones had tall, shark-fin-shaped spines on top, which is unusual for plesiosaurs.1

The first fossil was found by workers digging clay with pickaxes in 1910. They accidentally broke the hip bone into 176 pieces.1

Brancasaurus was about 3.26 metres (10.7 feet) long as a subadult. Adults may have been a bit bigger.1

Another plesiosaur named Gronausaurus wegneri is now thought to be the same as Brancasaurus, just a different growth stage.1 2

Brancasaurus shared its lake with sharks, crocodiles, turtles, and many kinds of fish.1

AI-made picture of Brancasaurus — An AI-made picture of how Brancasaurus 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.

you asked

Most asked questions about Brancasaurus

?Was Brancasaurus a dinosaur?

No, Brancasaurus was a plesiosaur, a type of marine reptile that lived in the time of the dinosaurs, but it was not a dinosaur itself.1 3

?How big was Brancasaurus?

The most complete fossil, a subadult, was about 3.26 metres (10.7 feet) long. Adults may have been a bit bigger.1 4 3

?What did Brancasaurus eat?

Brancasaurus likely hunted fish near the surface of the water, such as Caturus, Lepidotes, and Callopterus.1 3

?Where did Brancasaurus live?

Brancasaurus lived in a large freshwater lake in what is now Germany, during the Early Cretaceous period. The lake was sometimes connected to the sea.1 4 3

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Brancasaurus
Named by: Wegner 19145
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Leptocleididae5
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia5
Age of the rocks: 139 to 137 million years (Berriasian)5
Rock formations: Bückeberg5
Countries: Germany5
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database5
Discovery: Brancasaurus was named by Theodor Wegner in 1914. He named it after the paleontologist Wilhelm von Branca. The first skeleton was found in a clay pit near Gronau, Germany in 1910.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Brancasaurus belongs to the elasmosaurid family or the leptocleidid family. Different studies give different answers.1 2

Where the facts come from

Brancasaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Reappraisal of Europe's most complete Early Cretaceous plesiosaurian: Brancasaurus brancai Wegner, 1914 from the "Wealden facies" of Germany (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Brancasaurus Facts for Kids (kids.kiddle.co)
Reappraisal of Europe’s most complete Early Cretaceous plesiosaurian: Brancasaurus brancai Wegner, 1914 from the “Wealden facies” of Germany [PeerJ] (peerj.com)
Brancasaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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