Genus Attenborosaurus Bakker, 1993
Type species: Attenborosaurus conybeari (Sollas, 1881)
Diagnosis: Differs from all other long-necked plesiosaurs in having a more elongated, evenly tapered snout with a more reduced tooth count and more massive tooth crowns. Among Liassic genera, closest to Archaeonectrus, but differs in having a much more massive muzzle and much thicker teeth (from Bakker 1993 – warrants revision).
Distribution: Lower Jurassic, Sinemurian, Europe (United Kingdom).
Attenborosaurus conybeari (Sollas, 1881)
Holotype: Cb 2479, almost complete and articulated skeleton. Now destroyed.
Stratum typicum: Lower part of the Lias Group, 7 feet above the ‘boulder bed’; Ammonites obtusum Zone, Sinemurian, Lower Jurassic.
Locus typicus: Blackven Water, 1/2 a mile west of the River Char, Charmouth, Dorset, England.
Diagnosis: As for the genus.
Comments: The holotype specimen Cb 2479 was curated at the City Museum Bristol but was destroyed during World War II (Torrens 2004, Smith 2007). Sollas (1881) provided detailed drawings of the specimen, and photographs also still exist (Torrens 2004), one of which was reproduced in Swinton (1948, pl. 9). Casts of the holotype specimen are available at the Natural History Museum London (NHMUK PV R 1339), the Geological Museum of Trinity College Dublin (TCD.57763), and the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Oxford. Potential additional material described as Plesiosaurus laticeps is housed in the Natural History Museum London (Lydekker 1889). This material, however, warrants a full description and detailed comparison with the A. conybeari holotype.
Systematic palaeontology (sensu Benson & Druckenmiller 2014)
Plesiosauria de Blainville, 1835
Pliosauridae Seeley, 1874
Synonyms
Plesiosaurus conybeari Sollas, 1881
Institutional abbreviations
Cb – City Museum (now Bristol Museum & Art Gallery), Bristol, United Kingdom
NHMUK – Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom
TCD – Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Cited literature
de Blainville, H. M. D. (1835) Description de quelques espèces de reptiles de la Californie, précédée de l’analyse d’une système générale d’Erpetologie et d’Amphibiologie. Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. 4, 233–296.
Bakker, R. T. (1993) Plesiosaur extinction cycles-events that mark the beginning, middle and end of the Cretaceous. In W. G. E. Caldwell & E. G. Kauffman (Eds). Evolution of the Western Interior Basin (pp. 641–664). Geological Association of Canada, Special Paper, 39.
