Cryptoclidus

Cryptoclidus (/krɪptoʊˈklaɪdəs/ krip-toh-KLY-dəs) is a genus of plesiosaur reptile from the Middle Jurassic period of England, France, and Cuba.[1]

Cryptoclidus
Temporal range: Middle Jurassic
~166–160 Ma
Cast of a fossil skeleton, University of Tübingen
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Superorder: †Sauropterygia
Order: †Plesiosauria
Family: †Cryptoclididae
Subfamily: †Cryptoclidinae
Genus: †Cryptoclidus
Seeley, 1892
Type species
†Cryptoclidus eurymerus
Species
  • C.? beaugrandi Sauvage 1912
  • C. eurymerus Phillips 1871 (type)
  • C. richardsoni Lydekker 1889
  • C. vignalensis Torre & Cuervo 1939
Synonyms
  • Apractocleidus Smellie 1915

Discovery

Cryptoclidus was a plesiosaur whose specimens include adult and juvenile skeletons, and remains which have been found in various degrees of preservation in England, Northern France, Russia, and South America. Its name, meaning "hidden clavicles", refer to its small, practically invisible clavicles buried in its front limb girdle.

The type species was initially described as Plesiosaurus eurymerus by Phillips (1871). The species name "wide femur" refers to the forelimb, which was mistaken for a hindlimb at the time.

Classification
Skeleton of Cryptoclidus oxoniensis (AMNH 995)
Life restoration

The cladogram below follows the topology from Benson et al. (2012) analysis.[2]

Paleobiology
Life reconstruction of Cryptoclidus eurymerus

The fragile build of the head and teeth preclude any grappling with prey, and suggest a diet of small, soft-bodied animals such as squid and shoaling fish. Cryptoclidus may have used its long, intermeshing teeth to strain small prey from the water, or perhaps sift through sediment for buried animals.[3]

The size and shape of the nares and nasal openings have led Brown and Cruickshank (1994) to argue that they were used to sample seawater for smells and chemical traces.[4]

Distribution

Fossils of Cryptoclidus have been found in the Oxford Clay of Cambridgeshire, England. The dubious species Cryptoclidus beaugrandi is known from Kimmeridgian-age deposits in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.[5] Cryptoclidus vignalensis hails from the Jagua Formation of western Cuba.

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gollark: I don't need to be able to read or think to insult things.
gollark: But you seem to assume sideways peeing?
gollark: Okay, hmm, correction, you are *not*, good.
gollark: You're modelling the urine as if it has 0 velocity and just magically appears at a point then accelerates downward, in which case... it obviously can't go anywhere but right below where it appears.

See also

References
  1. Brown, David S., and Arthur RI Cruickshank. The skull of the Callovian plesiosaur Cryptoclidus eurymerus, and the sauropterygian cheek. Archived 2014-03-24 at the Wayback Machine Palaeontology 37.4 (1994): 941.
  2. Benson, R. B. J.; Evans, M.; Druckenmiller, P. S. (2012). Lalueza-Fox, Carles (ed.). "High Diversity, Low Disparity and Small Body Size in Plesiosaurs (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from the Triassic–Jurassic Boundary". PLoS ONE. 7 (3): e31838. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031838. PMC 3306369. PMID 22438869.
  3. Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 75. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.
  4. Brown and Cruickshank, 1994
  5. Bologne-sur-Mer at Fossilworks.org

Further reading
  • Z. Gasparini and L. Spaletti. 1993. First Callovian plesiosaurs from the Neuquen Basin, Argentina. Ameghiniana 30(3):245-254
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