Dino card No. 1176 of 2,027

Meyerasaurus

Say it: MY-er-ah-SORE-us

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Meyerasaurus was a fierce marine reptile that swam in the seas during the time of the dinosaurs. It was not a dinosaur, but a plesiosaur with a big head and strong jaws. It hunted 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

184 to 183 million years ago3

Early Jurassic

Fossils found in

Holzmaden, Baden-Württemberg, Germany2

Food

Meat1

Length

3.35 m2

total length of the holotype specimen

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 19 bananas end to end

How big was Meyerasaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Meyerasaurus was about 3.35 metres long, with a skull that was only 37 centimetres long. That means its head was quite small compared to its body.2

It had a short and wide snout, and its humerus (upper arm bone) was curved and longer than its femur (thigh bone).2

Meyerasaurus lived about 184 to 183 million years ago, during the Early Jurassic period.1

The only known fossil of Meyerasaurus was damaged during a bombing raid on Stuttgart in 1944, but it was rescued and repaired.2

Meyerasaurus belongs to a group called Rhomaleosauridae, which were plesiosaurs with short necks and big heads.2

Its teeth had fine ridges on them, called lingual striations, which helped it grip slippery prey.2

AI-made picture of Meyerasaurus — An AI-made picture of how Meyerasaurus 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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Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Meyerasaurus was a dinosaur because it lived during the age of dinosaurs.

Truth: Meyerasaurus was a marine reptile, not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs lived on land and had different body features.2

For dino experts

Scientific name: Meyerasaurus
Named by: Smith and Vincent 20103
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Rhomaleosauridae3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 184 to 183 million years (Toarcian)3
Rock formations: Posidonia Shale3
Countries: Germany3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: The fossil was first described by Eberhard Fraas in 1910, but it was given its own genus name Meyerasaurus by Smith and Vincent in 2010. The specimen was found in Holzmaden, Germany.2 1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether Rhomaleosauridae is a separate family, because different studies give different results.2

Where the facts come from

PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
A new genus of pliosaur (Reptilia: Sauropterygia) from the Lower Jurassic of Holzmaden, Germany (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
Meyerasaurus 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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