| Nothosauria Temporal range: Middle to Late Triassic | |
|---|---|
| |
| Nothosaurus | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | †Sauropterygia |
| Order: | †Nothosauria Baur, 1889 |
Nothosauria is an extinct order of sauropterygian reptiles of the Triassic. This group includes carnivores with flat limbs, which allowed them to swim.
Description[]
Nothosaurs are members of the Sauropterygia group and closely related to placodonts and plesiosaurs. As their relatives, nothosaurs lived in the seas. These long-necked animals swam with flat limbs, which they could also use to walk on land. Most likely, all nothosaurs laid eggs on the shore. The characteristic features of these animals are a relatively small and flat skull, and a long tail. They were slow swimmers and generally less well adapted to an aquatic lifestyle than later plesiosaurs. Nothosaurs were mostly small and medium predators ranging from 2 to 4 m in length, although the largest species could reach 7 m and were the largest sauropterygians of the Triassic period. They lived in coastal waters. Most nothosaurs ate fish and other marine animals.
Several genera[]
Simosaurus skeleton
- Nothosaurus is a type genus of the order. This long-necked fish-eating animal resembled seals in its lifestyle and was a contemporary of early ichthyosaurs. The species N. giganteus reached 7 m in length and was the largest Triassic sauropterygian.
- Ceresiosaurus has an elongated body shape. Due to their long neck and long narrow jaws with small sharp teeth, they easily hunted fish.
- Simosaurus reached 3 to 4 m in length. It is unique in having a relatively short skull with wide teeth, which allowed it to feed on animals with strong integuments, probably ammonites.
- Lariosaurus was one of the smallest nothosaurs, about the size of an adult human's hand. They probably spent most of their lives in shallow water or on the shore. They probably fed on fish and coastal crustaceans.
- Brevicaudosaurus had an unusual short tail and probably hunted on the seabed.[1]
Distribution[]
All nothosaur fossils were found in the water area of Tethys Ocean, which jutted into the supercontinent Pangea from the east. The waters of this ocean washed and partially covered the territories of modern Europe, northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Most nothosaurs lived in the Middle Triassic epoch, although indeterminate member had been reported from the Lower Triassic of Röt Formation in Poland.[2] Almost all nothosaurs became extinct in the early Late Triassic, and only few specimens are known from the Rhaetian age. The last members probably dissapeared during the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction.
References[]
- ↑ Shang, Qing-Hua; Wu, Xiao-Chun; Li, Chun (2020). "A New Ladinian Nothosauroid (Sauropterygia) from Fuyuan, Yunnan Province, China". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 40 (3): e1789651. DOI:10.1080/02724634.2020.1789651
- ↑ D. Surmik (2016). "Hemilopas mentzeli, an enigmatic marine reptile from the Middle Triassic of Poland revisited". Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie-Abhandlungen 282 (2): pp. 209-223