Dino card No. 1004 of 2,027

Lagenanectes

Say it: la-GEN-ah-NEK-teez

Name means: “Leine swimmer”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Lagenanectes was a long-necked marine reptile that swam in the seas of what is now Germany. It was not a dinosaur, but a plesiosaur, and it used its four flippers to paddle through the water. This ancient creature grew to about 8 meters long, as long as a school bus!2 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

133 to 126 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Lower Saxony, Germany1 2

Food

Meat3 2

Length

8 m2 1

estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 8 dogs nose to tailas long as 44 bananas end to end

How big was Lagenanectes compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Lagenanectes is one of the earliest known elasmosaurids, a group of plesiosaurs with very long necks. It lived about 130 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous.2 1

The front part of its lower jaw had a unique platform with dents, and the tooth sockets pointed sideways. This is different from most other plesiosaurs.1

Grooves on the top of its skull may have held electroreceptors, which helped Lagenanectes detect prey hidden in the dark water.1

The only known fossil of Lagenanectes shows signs of bone disease. The back of the skull and first neck vertebra had bony outgrowths, possibly from a bacterial infection.2 1

The fossil was discovered in 1964 by a private collector named Kurt Wiedenroth in a clay pit near Sarstedt, Germany. The pit no longer exists.2 1

Lagenanectes was named in 2017, more than 50 years after its discovery. Scientists finally studied the bones and realized it was a new genus.1

AI-made picture of Lagenanectes — An AI-made picture of how Lagenanectes 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: Lagenanectes
Named by: Sachs et al. 20174
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Elasmosauridae4
Classification: Plesiosauria > Elasmosauridae > Sauropterygia4
Age of the rocks: 133 to 126 million years (Hauterivian)4
Rock formations: Stadthagen4
Countries: Germany4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Lagenanectes was discovered in 1964 by fossil collector Kurt Wiedenroth in a clay pit near Sarstedt, Germany. It was named and described as a new genus and species by Sven Sachs, Jahn J. Hornung and Benjamin P. Kear in 2017.2 1
Still debated: The exact age of the Lagenanectes fossil is uncertain. It could be from the lower Hauterivian to lower Barremian stages, but scientists think it is most likely upper Hauterivian.2 1

Where the facts come from

Lagenanectes (en.wikipedia.org)
Lagenanectes richterae, an early elasmosaurid from Germany (sachspal.de)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Lagenanectes 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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