sauropterygian


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Related to sauropterygian: nothosaur, Sphenodontidae, Placodonts

saur·op·ter·yg·i·an

(sô-rŏp′tə-rĭj′ē-ən)
n.
Any of various extinct aquatic reptiles of the group Sauropterygia that flourished during the Mesozoic Era and included the plesiosaurs.
[From New Latin Sauropterygia, superorder name : Greek sauros, lizard + Greek pterux, pterug-, wing, flipper; see pet- in Indo-European roots.]
saur·op′ter·yg′i·an adj.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sauropterygian

(sɔːˌrɒptəˈrɪdʒɪən)
n
any carnivorous Mesozoic marine reptile of the group Sauropterygia, with paddle-like limbs
adj
of or relating to reptiles of the Sauropterygia
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
References in periodicals archive ?
A new finding corresponding to material of a Spanish sauropterygian individual is described here.
Nothosaurus is a sauropterygian taxon known by several species, whose fossils have been found in the Middle and lower Upper Triassic of Europe, China, Israel and Tunisia (Rieppel and Wild, 1996; Rieppel et al., 1997; 1999; Rieppel, 2000; 2001; Albers and Rieppel, 2003; Li and Rieppel, 2004; Albers, 2005; Jiang et al., 2006; Shang, 2006; Bickelmann and Sander, 2008; Klein and Albers, 2009; Ji et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2014; Klein et al., 2015).
Just as important is the 'debut' of top predators - such as the long-snouted bony fish Saurichthys, the ichthyosaur Mixosaurus, the sauropterygian Nothosaurus and the prolacertiform Dinocephalosaurus - that fed on fishes and small predatory reptiles.
Fossil site in China offers clues to mass extinction recovery
The second locality, Can Serra de l'Arca, yielded an incomplete specimen of a pachypleurosaurid sauropterygian. It preserves the thoracal region with extremely pachyostotic neural arches and vertebral centra, pachyostotic ribs and a probable distal fragment of a femur (see Sanz, 1983 for further details).
Vilanova de la Sal area (Lleida Province), Pyrenean basin: Some fish remains and a partially articulated sauropterygian skeleton were collected in this new site.
Although the phylogenetic position of choristoderes within Diapsida has yet to be resolved, all of the proposed positions (stem-neodiapsid, basal archosauromorph, sauropterygian relative etc) would predict an origin in the Late Permian or earliest Triassic.
Choristoderes and the freshwater assemblagesof Laurasia/ Coristoderos y las asociaciones de agua dulce de Laurasia
Having drawn this link in three lineages of extinct marine reptiles - mosasaurs, sauropterygians, and ichthyosaurs - the scientists said that genetic, or chromosomal, sex determination may have played a surprisingly strong role in adaptive radiations and the colonization of the world's oceans by a diverse array of species.
How ancient species adapted to life in open oceans
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