Nichollssaura

Nichollssaura
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 110 Ma
Nichollssaura at the Royal Tyrrell Museum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Superorder: Sauropterygia
Order: Plesiosauria
Node: Leptocleidia
Family: Leptocleididae
Genus: Nichollssaura
Druckenmiller & Russell, 2009
Species: N. borealis
Binomial name
Nichollssaura borealis
(Druckenmiller & Russell, 2008 [originally Nichollsia, preoccupied)
Synonyms

Nichollsia borealis Druckenmiller & Russell, 2008

Nichollssaura is an extinct genus of leptocleidid[1] plesiosaur from the Early Cretaceous Boreal Sea of North America. The type species is N. borealis, found in early Albian deposits of Alberta, Canada. Nichollssaura fills an approximate 40-million-year gap in the fossil record of North American plesiosaurs.

It was discovered in a Syncrude mine in Alberta, Canada in 1994. The fossil is on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, missing only the left forelimb and scapula, lost when the beast was discovered accidentally by 100-ton electric shovel operators Greg Fisher and Lorne Cundal.[2]

Etymology

The fossil, named after paleontological curator Betsy Nicholls, originally was named Nichollsia borealis[3] but Nichollsia was already in use (preoccupied) by a genus of isopods. Thus, the original authors proposed Nichollssaura as a replacement generic name in 2009.[4]

References

  1. ^ Ketchum, H. F., and Benson, R. B. J. (2010). "Global interrelationships of Plesiosauria (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) and the pivotal role of taxon sampling in determining the outcome of phylogenetic analyses". Biological Reviews 85 (2): 361–392. doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.2009.00107.x. PMID 20002391. 
  2. ^ PALAEOBLOG
  3. ^ Druckenmiller, P.S.; Russell, A.P. (2008). "Skeletal anatomy of an exceptionally complete specimen of a new genus of plesiosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Early Albian) of northeastern Alberta, Canada". Palaeontographica Abteilung A 283: 1–33. 
  4. ^ Druckenmiller, Patrick S.; and Russell, Anthony P. (2009). "The new plesiosaurian genus Nichollssaura from Alberta, Canada: replacement name for the preoccupied genus Nichollsia". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29 (1): 276. doi:10.1080/02724634.2009.10010379. 

External links