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      Earliest North American occurrence of Polycotylidae (Sauropterygia: Plesiosauria) from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) Clearwater Formation, Alberta, Canada

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      Journal of Paleontology
      Paleontological Society

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          Abstract

          The polycotylidae is a family of short-necked (pliosauromorph) plesiosaurs, with examples known from epicontinental marine deposits of every major landmass except Antarctica. Our knowledge of its diversity and distribution has increased tremendously in the last decade, with new material described from North America (Sato, 2005; Albright et al., 2007; Schumacher, 2007; Schmeisser, 2008), South America (Gasparini and de la Fuente, 2000; Salgado et al., 2007), Africa (Bardet et al., 2003; Buchy et al., 2005), and Asia (Sato and Storrs, 2000; Arkhangel'skii et al., 2007). Polycotylid diversity is greatest in the Late Cretaceous, and particularly so in the Turonian; however, knowledge of the group's initial history in the Early Cretaceous is limited to a handful of specimens from North America (Storrs, 1981; Druckenmiller, 2002) and Australia (Kear 2003, 2005).

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          Cretaceous marine reptiles of Australia: a review of taxonomy and distribution

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            Late Cretaceous reptiles (Families Elasmosauridae and Pliosauridae) from the Mangahouanga Stream, North Island, New Zealand

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              The skull of the giant predatory pliosaur Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni: implications for plesiosaur phylogenetics.

              The predatory pliosaurs were among the largest creatures ever to inhabit the oceans, some reaching gigantic proportions greater than 15 m in length. Fossils of this subclade of plesiosaurs are known from sediments all over the world, ranging in age from the Hettangian (approximately 198 Myr) to the Turonian (approximately 92 Myr). However, due to a lack of detailed studies and because only incomplete specimens are usually reported, pliosaur evolution remains poorly understood. In this paper, we describe the three dimensionally preserved skull of the giant Jurassic pliosaur Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni. The first phylogenetic analysis dedicated to in-group relationships of pliosaurs allows us to hypothesise a number of well-supported lineages that correlate with marine biogeography and the palaeoecology of these reptiles. Rhomaleosaurids comprised a short-lived and early diverging lineage within pliosaurs, whose open-water top-predator niche was filled by other pliosaur taxa by the mid-late Jurassic.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                applab
                Journal of Paleontology
                J. Paleontol.
                Paleontological Society
                0022-3360
                1937-2337
                November 2009
                July 2015
                : 83
                : 06
                : 981-989
                Article
                10.1666/09-014.1
                c0f04a31-ff66-40c1-8da0-a8050c1e2ae5
                © 2009
                History

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