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Thaumatosaurus

Say it: THAW-mah-toh-SORE-us

Name means: “wonder reptile”1

Ate: MeatPlesiosaursMiddle JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Thaumatosaurus was a plesiosaur, a long-necked marine reptile that lived in the sea. It swam in warm, shallow waters during the Jurassic Period, about 168 to 165 million years ago. Scientists are not sure exactly what it looked like because the fossils are very incomplete.2 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

168 to 165 million years ago3

Middle Jurassic

Fossils found in

France (Basse-Normandie) and possibly Germany2 1

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Thaumatosaurus was named in 1841 by the paleontologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer.1

The name Thaumatosaurus means 'wonder reptile' in Greek.1

Many fossils that were once called Thaumatosaurus are now thought to belong to other plesiosaurs like Rhomaleosaurus and Meyerasaurus.1

Thaumatosaurus is considered a 'nomen dubium' or doubtful name, because the original fossil pieces are too few to tell exactly what kind of plesiosaur it was.1

The fossils of Thaumatosaurus were found in rocks from the Bathonian stage, which is about 168 to 165 million years old.2

Thaumatosaurus lived in the ocean and was a strong swimmer, using its flippers to move through the water.2

AI-made picture of Thaumatosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Thaumatosaurus 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 Thaumatosaurus was a dinosaur.

Truth: Thaumatosaurus was a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that lived in the sea, not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs lived on land.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Thaumatosaurus
Named by: (Meyer 1841)3
Group: Plesiosaurs
Family / clade: Plesiosauridae3
Classification: Plesiosauria > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 168 to 165 million years (Bathonian)3
Rock formations: Calcaires de Caen, Great Oolite3
Countries: France3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Thaumatosaurus was named in 1841 by the German paleontologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer. He described the species Thaumatosaurus oolithicus from partial skull, backbone and limb fossils found in Germany.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure what Thaumatosaurus really looked like because the original fossils are too incomplete. It might be the same as another plesiosaur.1

Where the facts come from

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