Rhomaleosaurus

Rhomaleosaurus is an extinct genus of Early Jurassic rhomaleosaurid pliosauroid known from Northamptonshire and from Yorkshire of the United Kingdom. It was first named by Harry Seeley in 1874 and the type species is Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni. It was one of the earliest large marine reptile predators which hunted in the seas of Mesozoic era, measuring about 7 metres (23 ft) long. Like other pliosaurs, Rhomaleosaurus fed on ichthyosaurs, ammonites and other plesiosaurs.

Rhomaleosaurus

APK · CC BY 4.0 · 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
RhomaleosauridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Environment
marinePBDB, for Plesiosauria
Length
7 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 199.5 Mya to 184.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 174.7 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 15 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 15 of 15 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 15 occurrences202–201 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences201–200 Mya — about 2 occurrences200–199 Mya — about 1 occurrence194–193 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences193–192 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences192–191 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences191–190 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences190–189 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189–188 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences188–187 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences187–186 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences186–185 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences185–184 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences184–183 Mya — about 2 occurrences183–182 Mya — about 2 occurrences182–182 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences182–181 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences181–180 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences180–179 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences179–178 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences178–177 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences177–176 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences176–175 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences175–174 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences199.5 Mya184.2 Mya201.9 Mya174.2 Mya

15 occurrences of Rhomaleosaurus 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

15 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

5 formations

Whitby Mudstone — 54.53°N, 0.70°WWhitby Mudstone — 52.26°N, 0.90°WAlum Shale — 54.55°N, 0.88°WAlum Shale — 54.48°N, 0.60°WBlue Lias — 51.13°N, 2.73°WBlue Lias — 52.75°N, 1.15°WBlue Lias — 51.14°N, 2.55°WWestbury — 52.22°N, 1.75°WMarlstone Rock — 52.21°N, 1.01°W

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The named rock units Rhomaleosaurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhomaleosaurus and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Rhomaleosaurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

30 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Rhomaleosaurus, 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

8 references

Each of the 15 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 content2

Picture of Rhomaleosaurus

Credit
APK
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itRhomaleosauridae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

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