Bathyspondylus

Bathyspondylus is known only from a partial skeleton found in 1774, which includes 20 chest vertebrae, 23 back vertebrae, 1 tail vertebra, and some rib and hip bones.1

Its vertebrae are very short from front to back, and their ends are flat or slightly hollow.1

The fossils show a mix of features from two different plesiosaur groups, pliosauroids and plesiosauroids, which makes it hard to classify.1

The only known species is Bathyspondylus swindoniensis, named after the town of Swindon where it was found.1

Bathyspondylus lived during the Kimmeridgian stage of the Jurassic Period, about 155 to 150 million years ago.1

The holotype skeleton was once owned by William Cunnington III before 1810, and later ended up in the Devizes Museum in England.1