Dino card No. 1448 of 2,027

Plesiopharos

Say it: PLEE-see-oh-FAIR-os

Name means: “near lighthouse, referring to the lighthouse near where it was found”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursEarly JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Plesiopharos was an early plesiosaur that swam in the warm seas of Portugal about 195 million years ago. It had a long body, four flippers, and a short tail, and it used its sharp teeth to catch fish and other sea creatures.3 1

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

200 to 193 million years ago3

Early Jurassic

Fossils found in

Praia da Concha, near São Pedro de Moel, central west Portugal1

Food

Meat3

Length

2.5 to 2.8 m2

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 16 bananas end to end

How big was Plesiopharos compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Plesiopharos is one of the oldest and most complete plesiosaurs ever found in the Iberian Peninsula, which includes Portugal and Spain.1

Its name comes from the Greek words for 'near' and 'lighthouse', because it was discovered near a lighthouse called Penedo da Saudade.1

The fossil was found by two fossil hunters, Vitor Teixeira and António Silva, who donated it to the Museu da Lourinhã in 2017.1

Plesiopharos lived during the Sinemurian age of the Early Jurassic, about 199 to 193 million years ago, when the Atlantic Ocean was just beginning to form.3 1

Scientists think Plesiopharos was a very early member of the group Plesiosauroidea, which includes the long-necked plesiosaurs that came later.1

The only known skeleton of Plesiopharos includes 22 vertebrae, ribs, parts of the hips and shoulders, and bones from its flippers.1

AI-made picture of Plesiopharos — An AI-made picture of how Plesiopharos 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: Plesiopharos
Named by: Puértolas-Pascual et al. 20213
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Plesiosauroidea3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 200 to 193 million years (Sinemurian)3
Countries: Portugal3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Plesiopharos was named in 2021 by a team of scientists led by Eduardo Puértolas-Pascual. The fossil was found at Praia da Concha in Portugal and donated to the Museu da Lourinhã.3 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Plesiopharos belongs more closely to the long-necked plesiosauroids or to other early plesiosaur groups, because its skeleton has a mix of features from different lineages.1

Where the facts come from

A new plesiosaur from the Lower Jurassic of Portugal and the early radiation of Plesiosauroidea (dinodata.de)
Plesiopharos (en.wikipedia.org)
Plesiopharos 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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