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Lusonectes

Say it: LOO-so-NEK-teez

Name means: “Portuguese swimmer”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Lusonectes was a marine reptile that swam in the warm Jurassic seas near what is now Portugal. It had a long snout and sharp teeth to catch fish and other slippery prey.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

184 to 175 million years ago3

Early Jurassic

Fossils found in

Near Alhadas, District of Coimbra, Portugal2

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Lusonectes is the only plesiosaur from Portugal that scientists can identify as a distinct species.1

Its name comes from Latin and Greek words meaning 'Portuguese swimmer'.1

The only fossil found is a partial skull, which is about 127 millimeters (5 inches) long.1

Lusonectes lived about 184 to 175 million years ago, during the Early Jurassic period.3

It was first described in 1897 by French paleontologist Henri Émile Sauvage, who thought it was a Plesiosaurus.2

Lusonectes is one of the few plesiosaurs from the Early Jurassic found outside the United Kingdom and Germany.2

AI-made picture of Lusonectes — An AI-made picture of how Lusonectes 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: Lusonectes
Named by: Smith et al. 20123
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Plesiosauridae3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 184 to 175 million years (Toarcian)3
Rock formations: São Gião3
Countries: Portugal3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The fossil was first described in 1897 by French paleontologist Henri Émile Sauvage, who called it Plesiosaurus sp. In 2012, scientists Smith, Araújo, and Mateus gave it the new name Lusonectes sauvagei.2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Lusonectes was an early pliosaurid or a plesiosauroid, because the only fossil is a poorly preserved partial skull.2

Where the facts come from

A new plesiosauroid from the Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) (app.pan.pl)
The osteology, taxonomy, and phylogenetic affinities of the Early Jurassic plesiosaur Lusonectes sauvagei - PMC (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Lusonectes 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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