Cimoliasaurus
Cimoliasaurus was a long-necked marine reptile that swam in the seas during the time of the dinosaurs. It was not a dinosaur, but a plesiosaur, a type of ancient sea creature. With its strong flippers, it glided through the water hunting for fish and other prey.14
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Fun facts
The name Cimoliasaurus means 'white chalk lizard' because its fossils were found in rocks that look like the white chalk of England.1
Cimoliasaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 70 to 66 million years ago.1
The first fossils of Cimoliasaurus were vertebrae (back bones) found in New Jersey in 1851.1
Cimoliasaurus belongs to the family Elasmosauridae, which includes some of the longest-necked plesiosaurs.1
A possible Cimoliasaurus vertebra was found by a schoolboy named Colin McEwen during a field trip in Maryland in 1988.1
Some scientists once thought Cimoliasaurus was a different kind of reptile, but now they agree it is an elasmosaurid plesiosaur.1
Most asked questions about Cimoliasaurus
?What did Cimoliasaurus eat?
It was an aquatic carnivore, meaning it ate meat like fish and other sea creatures.4
?How big was Cimoliasaurus?
Nobody knows for sure because only vertebrae and teeth have been found. The vertebrae range from 2.5 to 10 cm long, so it was a medium-sized plesiosaur.3
?Where was Cimoliasaurus found?
Its fossils have been found in New Jersey, North Carolina, and Maryland in the United States.1
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Cimoliasaurus
- Named by
- Leidy 18514
- Group
- Plesiosaurs
- Family / clade
- Elasmosauridae4
- Classification
- Plesiosauria > Elasmosauridae > Sauropterygia4
- Age of the rocks
- 155 to 66 million years (Kimmeridgian / Maastrichtian)4
- Rock formations
- Navesink, Severn, Eagle Ford4
- Countries
- USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Chile, Czechia4
- Fossil records
- 18 in the Paleobiology Database4
- Also known as
- Hunosaurus, Iserosaurus (older names now counted as the same animal)4
- Discovery
- Cimoliasaurus was named by the American paleontologist Joseph Leidy in 1851. He described it from a set of neck vertebrae found in greensand deposits in Burlington County, New Jersey.1
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure exactly how big Cimoliasaurus was, because only a few bones have been found so far.1
Where the facts come from
- Cimoliasaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
- Cimoliasaurus | Dinopedia (dinosciencecenter.com)
- Plesiosaur, Cimoliasaurus magnus (fossilsofnj.com)
- Cimoliasaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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