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Lindwurmia

Say it: lind-WUR-mee-uh

Name means: “named after the Lindwurm, a dragon from German folklore”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Lindwurmia was a small, long-necked marine reptile that swam in the seas of Early Jurassic Germany. It was a plesiosaur, not a dinosaur, and it used its four flippers to paddle through the water. This ancient hunter ate fish and other sea creatures.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

201 to 200 million years ago2

Early Jurassic

Fossils found in

Halberstadt, northwest Germany1 2

Food

Meat2 1

Length

2 to 3 m1

scientists 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 3 dogs nose to tailas long as 17 bananas end to end

How big was Lindwurmia compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Lindwurmia was named in 2019, making it a relatively new discovery in the world of plesiosaurs.1 2

Its name comes from the Lindwurm, a dragon in German stories, because the fossil was found in Germany.1

The only known fossil was discovered in 1899 by Johannes Maak, but it was not recognized as a new species until over a century later.1

Lindwurmia had 24 neck vertebrae and five pairs of teeth in its upper jaw.1

The fossil was partly damaged by a dragline excavator when it was first found, but it was restored by 1900.1

Scientists think Lindwurmia was a rhomaleosaurid, a group of plesiosaurs with short necks and large heads.1

AI-made picture of Lindwurmia — An AI-made picture of how Lindwurmia 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: Lindwurmia
Named by: Vincent and Storrs 20192
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Plesiosauria2
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia2
Age of the rocks: 201 to 200 million years (Hettangian)2
Countries: Germany2
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: The only fossil of Lindwurmia was found in 1899 in a clay quarry in Halberstadt, Germany, by Johannes Maak. It was first described by Theodore Brandes in 1912 and 1914, but it was not named Lindwurmia thiuda until 2019 by Peggy Vincent and Glenn Storrs.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly where Lindwurmia fits on the plesiosaur family tree. Some studies place it close to Anningasaura within Rhomaleosauridae.1

Where the facts come from

Lindwurmia (en.wikipedia.org)
Lindwurmia 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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