Dino card No. 0623 of 2,027

Eretmosaurus

Name means: “oar lizard”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Eretmosaurus was a plesiosaur, a long-necked marine reptile that swam in the seas during the Jurassic Period. It used four flippers to paddle through the water and catch fish and other prey.1 3

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

Lived

200 to 193 million years ago3

Early Jurassic

Fossils found in

England and Russia1

Food

Meat3

Length

4 to 5 m2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 5 dogs nose to tailas long as 28 bananas end to end

How big was Eretmosaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Eretmosaurus lived during the Early and Middle Jurassic, about 199.5 to 161.5 million years ago.1

The first fossils of Eretmosaurus were originally named Plesiosaurus rugosus by Richard Owen in 1840.1

The name Eretmosaurus means 'oar lizard' because its flippers looked like oars.1

Two species are known: Eretmosaurus rugosus and Eretmosaurus dubius.1

A nearly complete skeleton of Eretmosaurus rugosus was found in Granby, Nottinghamshire, England.1

Scientists have argued about which group of plesiosaurs Eretmosaurus belongs to. It has been placed in Rhomaleosauridae, Pliosauridae, Elasmosauridae, and most recently Microcleididae.1

AI-made picture of Eretmosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Eretmosaurus 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: Eretmosaurus
Named by: Seeley 18743
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Plesiosauria3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 200 to 193 million years (Sinemurian)3
Countries: United Kingdom3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The first fossils were described by Richard Owen in 1840 as Plesiosaurus rugosus. Harry Seeley named the genus Eretmosaurus in 1874 based on a headless skeleton from Granby, England.1
Still debated: Scientists are still unsure exactly which plesiosaur family Eretmosaurus belongs to, as it has been classified in several different groups over time.1

Where the facts come from

Eretmosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Palaeos Vertebrates : Sauropterygia: Plesiosauroidea (2) (palaeos.com)
Eretmosaurus 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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