Bathyspondylus

Bathyspondylus
Temporal range: Late Jurassic, Kimmeridgian
Restoration of B. swindoniensis as a basal cryptocleidid
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Sauropsida
Superorder:
†Sauropterygia
Order:
†Plesiosauria
Genus:
†Bathyspondylus

Delair, 1982
Binomial name
†Bathyspondylus swindoniensis
Delair, 1982

Bathyspondylus is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Kimmeridge Clay Formation of Swindon, England. Because it is known only from its fossil vertebrae (and so few of those have been recovered), paleontologists are not entirely sure of the taxonomy of Bathyspondylus; the family it belongs to is not currently known.[1] The type, and only known, species is B. swindoniensis, which was described from the same material as its genus.[2]

  1. ^ Cladistic Analysis of the Plesiosauria (Reptilia: Sauropterygia)Adam Stuart Smith, Supervised by M. J. Benton. University of Bristol, Department of Earth Sciences. September 2003. pg. 18
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Delair1982 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).