Dino card No. 1026 of 2,027

Leivanectes

Say it: lay-VAN-ek-teez

Name means: “Leiva swimmer, named after Villa de Leiva in Colombia”1 2

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Leivanectes was a long-necked marine reptile that swam in the warm seas of Colombia about 115 million years ago. It was a plesiosaur, not a dinosaur, and it used its strong flippers to paddle through the water. This ocean hunter had a special short jaw with big teeth for catching large fish.1 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

120 to 113 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Villa de Leiva, Boyacá, Colombia (Paja Formation)1 2

Food

Meat1 2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Leivanectes had fewer and larger teeth than any other known elasmosaurid plesiosaur. It only had 3 teeth in the front of its lower jaw, while a similar plesiosaur called Callawayasaurus had 5.2

This plesiosaur lived during the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous, between about 119 and 113 million years ago.1

Leivanectes was named in 2019 by a team of scientists from Argentina and Colombia, including María Páramo-Fonseca and José O'Gorman.1 2

Its short jaw and big teeth suggest Leivanectes ate larger prey than other long-necked elasmosaurids, which usually ate small fish.2

Leivanectes is only known from a partial skull and lower jaw, so scientists are not sure how big its body was.2

AI-made picture of Leivanectes — An AI-made picture of how Leivanectes 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: Leivanectes
Named by: Páramo-Fonseca et al. 20193
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Elasmosauridae3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Elasmosauridae > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 120 to 113 million years (Aptian)3
Rock formations: Paja3
Countries: Colombia3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Leivanectes was discovered in the Paja Formation of Villa de Leiva, Colombia, and named in 2019 by Páramo-Fonseca and colleagues. The species name bernardoi honors a local person named Bernardo.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure how long Leivanectes' neck was, because only its skull has been found. It might have had a shorter neck than other elasmosaurids.2

Where the facts come from

PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
A new late Aptian elasmosaurid from the Paja Formation, Villa de Leiva, Colombia (explore.openaire.eu)
Leivanectes 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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