Eurysaurus
Sign in to saveEurysaurus (meaning "wide lizard") is an extinct genus of plesiosaur, originally classed as a nothosaur, from the Early Jurassic of Echenoz-la-Meline, France, named in 1878. The type material, consisting of a cranium, teeth and five vertebrae, is now lost. The type species is E. raincourti, and a second species, E. schafferi, was named in 1924 but it has since been absorbed into the unrelated genus Germanosaurus.
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- taxon name
- Eurysaurus
- start time
- 195000000-
- end time
- 185000000-
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Eurysaurus (meaning "wide lizard") is an extinct genus of plesiosaur, originally classed as a nothosaur, from the Early Jurassic of Echenoz-la-Meline, France, named in 1878. The type material, consisting of a cranium, teeth and five vertebrae, is now lost. The type species is E. raincourti, and a second species, E. schafferi, was named in 1924 but it has since been absorbed into the unrelated genus Germanosaurus.
==History== The holotype, first described in 1878 by Albert Gaudry, has since been lost. A new study based essentially on illustrations of the type material by Noè (2001) has considered Eurysaurus a nomen dubium, probably congeneric with the pliosaur Simolestes. However, due to the stratigraphic difference of the two forms, it is possible that Eurysaurus was a separate genus in its own right.