| Nichollssaura Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 110 Ma |
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| 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) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Nichollsia borealis Druckenmiller & Russell, 2008 |
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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]
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]
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