Plesiopterys wildi

Plesiopterys is an extinct genus of plesiosaur originating from the Posidonienschiefer of Holzmaden, Germany, and lived during the Early Jurassic period. The type and only species is P. wildi, known from two immature specimens with the subadult measuring 3 metres (9.8 ft) long. It possesses a unique combination of both primitive and derived characters, and is currently displayed at the State Museum of Natural History and the Hauff Museum, Germany.

Plesiopterys wildi

Uncredited · 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
PlesiopterysPBDB
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 1.3 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 184.2 Mya and 182.9 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Early Jurassic — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEarly Jurassic184–184 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–183 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences184.7 Mya182.4 Mya

1 occurrence of Plesiopterys wildi on record, most of them in the Early 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

1 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

1 formation

Posidonienschiefer — 48.63°N, 9.54°E

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

Plesiopterys wildi and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Plesiopterys wildi and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

1 taxon

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Plesiopterys wildi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Plesiopterys wildi

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Plesiopterys wildi 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 itPlesiopterys through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. O'Keefe 2004