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Djupedalia

Say it: joo-peh-DAH-lee-uh

Name means: “Djupedal's lizard, named after Øystein Kåre Djupedal, a Norwegian minister who helped fund the fossil excavation”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursLate Jurassic to Early CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Djupedalia was a long-necked marine reptile that swam in the warm, shallow seas near Svalbard, Norway, about 150 million years ago. It was not a dinosaur, but a plesiosaur, a type of ocean predator. With its small head and long neck, it likely snapped up fish and squid while paddling through the water.3 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

149 to 143 million years ago3

Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

The only known fossil was found on the northeastern slope of Janusfjellet mountain in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway.3 2

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Djupedalia is known from a single juvenile skeleton that is one of the most complete marine reptile fossils ever found in Spitsbergen.2

Its neck bones were special: the neural spines (the parts that stick up from the vertebrae) were shifted far back, and the postzygapophyses (the joints that connect vertebrae) were very long.2

Djupedalia had femora (thigh bones) that were longer than its humeri (upper arm bones), which is unusual for plesiosaurs.2

The fossil was found about 20 metres below a rock layer called the Dorsoplanites bed, which is full of ammonite shells.2

Djupedalia lived during the Tithonian age, about 150 to 145 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic period.1

AI-made picture of Djupedalia — An AI-made picture of how Djupedalia 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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Myth buster

Myth: Some people might think Djupedalia was a dinosaur because it lived in the sea and had a long neck.

Truth: Djupedalia was a plesiosaur, a marine reptile, not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs lived on land, while plesiosaurs swam in the ocean.3

For dino experts

Scientific name: Djupedalia
Named by: Knutsen et al. 20123
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Cryptoclididae3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 149 to 143 million years (Tithonian)3
Rock formations: Agardhfjellet3
Countries: Norway3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Djupedalia was named in 2012 by Espen M. Knutsen, Patrick S. Druckenmiller, and Jørn H. Hurum. The fossil was excavated in the summer of 2009 by the University of Oslo Natural History Museum from the Slottsmøya Member near Janusfjellet mountain.2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Djupedalia is related to other plesiosaurs, since it shares features with several different groups from England and other places.2

Where the facts come from

Djupedalia (en.wikipedia.org)
A new plesiosauroid (Reptilia: Sauropterygia) from the Agardhfjellet Formation (Middle Volgian) of central Spitsbergen, Norway (foreninger.uio.no)
Djupedalia 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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