Dino card No. 1138 of 2,027

Maresaurus

Say it: MAH-ray-SORE-us

Name means: “sea lizard”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursMiddle JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Maresaurus was a fierce marine reptile that swam in the oceans of what is now Argentina about 170 million years ago. It was a plesiosaur, not a dinosaur, and it used its strong jaws to catch fish and other sea creatures.3 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

171 to 169 million years ago3

Middle Jurassic

Fossils found in

Argentina (Neuquén Province)2 1

Food

Meat3 2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Maresaurus lived during the Middle Jurassic period, about 170 to 168 million years ago.2

The only known fossil of Maresaurus is a partial skeleton that includes a skull, lower jaw, and some neck bones.3

Scientists think Maresaurus belonged to a group of plesiosaurs called rhomaleosaurids, which were short-necked predators.1

Maresaurus was named by paleontologist Zulma Gasparini in 1997.3 1

The type species is called Maresaurus coccai.1

Maresaurus fossils were found in the Los Molles Formation, which was once a shallow sea.3 1

AI-made picture of Maresaurus — An AI-made picture of how Maresaurus 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: Maresaurus
Named by: Gasparini 19973
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Rhomaleosauridae3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 171 to 169 million years (Bajocian)3
Rock formations: Los Molles3
Countries: Argentina3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Maresaurus was named by paleontologist Zulma Gasparini in 1997 based on a partial skeleton found at Chacaico Sur, Los Molles, in Argentina.3 1

Where the facts come from

Maresaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Maresaurus 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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