Muraenosaurus leedsii

Muraenosaurus is an extinct genus of cryptoclidid plesiosaur reptile from the Oxford Clay of Southern England. The genus was given its name due to the eel-like appearance of the long neck and small head. Muraenosaurus grew up to 5.2 metres (17 ft) in length and lived roughly between 160 Ma and 164 Ma in the Callovian of the middle Jurassic. Charles E. Leeds collected the first Muraenosaurus which was then described by H. G. Seeley. The specimen may have suffered some damage due to the casual style of Charles Leeds’ collection. The first muraenosaur was recovered with pieces missing from the skull and many of the caudal vertebrae absent. Because the animal was described from Charles Leeds’ collection it was given the name Muraenosaurus Leedsii. M. leedsii is the most complete specimen belonging to the genus Muraenosaurus and also the only species that is undoubtedly a member of the genus. Two other species have been tentatively referred to as members of the genus Muraenosaurus: M. reedii and Muraenosaurus beloclis Seeley 1892, which in 1910 became the separate genus Picrocleidus.

Muraenosaurus leedsii

Arthur Hodson Searle · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
MuraenosaurusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Environment
marinePBDB, for Plesiosauria

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 165.3 Mya and 154.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Jurassic — about 8 of 9 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 1 of 9 occurrencesLate Jurassic165–165 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences165–165 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences165–164 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences164–164 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences164–164 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences164–163 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences163–163 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences163–162 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences162–162 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences162–162 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences162–161 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences161–161 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences161–160 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences160–160 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences160–160 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences160–159 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences159–159 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences159–159 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences159–158 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158–158 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158–157 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences157–157 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences157–156 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences156–156 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences156–155 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences155–155 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences165.8 Mya154.3 Mya

9 occurrences of Muraenosaurus leedsii on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

9 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Oxford Clay — 52.57°N, 0.23°WOxford Clay — 52.40°N, 0.24°WOxford Clay — 51.78°N, 1.29°WOxford Clay — 50.61°N, 2.45°WArgiles de Montaubert — 50.73°N, 1.84°E

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The named rock units Muraenosaurus leedsii has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Muraenosaurus leedsii and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Muraenosaurus leedsii and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

41 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Muraenosaurus leedsii, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

9 references

Each of the 9 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Muraenosaurus leedsii

Credit
Arthur Hodson Searle
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Muraenosaurus leedsii was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMuraenosaurus through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Seeley 1874)