Morenosaurus
Encyclopedia
Morenosaurus is an extinct
genus
of plesiosaur
from the Cretaceous
of what is now California
. The type species
is Morenosaurus stocki, first named by Samuel Welles in 1943, in honor of Dr. Chester Stock. The species was found by Robert Wallace and Arthur Drescher in the Panoche Hills region of Fresno County. The skeleton they found was fairly complete, and lacked only the head and parts of the neck and paddles. The skeleton was originally mounted at Caltech but is now in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
.
Morenosaurus may have been similar to Elasmosaurus
or Thallasomedon, but studies in the early 2000s indicated that the fossil
s were too scrappy to identify to the family level. Morenosaurus is not to be confused with the similarly named plesiosaur Muraenosaurus
.
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of plesiosaur
Plesiosaur
Plesiosauroidea is an extinct clade of carnivorous plesiosaur marine reptiles. Plesiosauroids, are known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods...
from the Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
of what is now California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The type species
Type species
In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...
is Morenosaurus stocki, first named by Samuel Welles in 1943, in honor of Dr. Chester Stock. The species was found by Robert Wallace and Arthur Drescher in the Panoche Hills region of Fresno County. The skeleton they found was fairly complete, and lacked only the head and parts of the neck and paddles. The skeleton was originally mounted at Caltech but is now in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, USA in 1913 as the Museum of History, Science, and Art. The moving force behind it was a museum association founded in 1910. Its distinctive main building, with fitted marble walls and domed and...
.
Morenosaurus may have been similar to Elasmosaurus
Elasmosaurus
Elasmosaurus + σαυρος sauros 'lizard') is a genus of plesiosaur with an extremely long neck that lived in the Late Cretaceous period , 80.5 million years ago.-Description:...
or Thallasomedon, but studies in the early 2000s indicated that the fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s were too scrappy to identify to the family level. Morenosaurus is not to be confused with the similarly named plesiosaur Muraenosaurus
Muraenosaurus
Muraenosaurus is an extinct genus of sauropterygian reptile, from the Middle Jurassic of Europe. Fossils have been found in England and France....
.
External links
- Morenosaurus from the PaleoBiology Database
- Morenosaurus at the Natural History Museum