Dino card No. 1131 of 2,027

Manemergus

Say it: man-eh-MER-gus

Name means: “snake neck”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Manemergus was a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that swam in the warm seas of Morocco about 90 million years ago. It had a long, stiff neck and a narrow snout full of smooth, slender teeth for catching fish.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

94 to 90 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Goulmima, in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco1 4

Food

Meat4

Length

3 m3

holotype juvenile, adult length uncertain

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 Manemergus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Manemergus is known from a single skeleton of a juvenile, so scientists think it was a young animal when it died.2

Its neck was probably very stiff because the bones had strong ligaments connecting them, like tough rubber bands.2

Manemergus lived in the same place as another plesiosaur called Thililua, both found near the town of Goulmima in Morocco.1

It belonged to a group of plesiosaurs called polycotylids, which were fast swimmers with short necks and big heads.1 4

The name Manemergus means 'snake neck' in Latin, because its neck was long and snake-like.1

AI-made picture of Manemergus — An AI-made picture of how Manemergus 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: Manemergus
Named by: Buchy et al. 20054
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Polycotylidae4
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia4
Age of the rocks: 94 to 90 million years (Turonian)4
Rock formations: Akrabou4
Countries: Morocco4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Manemergus was named in 2005 by Marie-Céline Buchy, François Métayer, and Eberhard Frey based on a skeleton found near Goulmima, Morocco.4 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how big Manemergus grew, because the only known fossil is from a juvenile.2

Where the facts come from

Manemergus (en.wikipedia.org)
Osteology of Manemergus anguirostris n. gen. et sp., a new plesiosaur (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco - Palaeontographica Abteilung A Band 272 Lieferung 5-6, Schweizerbart science publishers (schweizerbart.de)
Manemergus (nl.wikipedia.org)
Manemergus 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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