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Cryptoclididae
Taxonomy
Cryptoclididae was named by Williston (1925). It is not extant. Its type is Cryptoclidus. It was considered monophyletic by Gasparini et al. (2002).
It was synonymized subjectively with Plesiosauridae by Kuhn (1966).
It was assigned to Plesiosauria by Kuhn (1946); to Plesiosauria by White (1940) and Carpenter (1999); to Cryptocleidoidea by O'Keefe (2001); to Cryptoclidia by Ketchum and Benson (2010), Ketchum and Benson (2011) and Benson and Druckenmiller (2014); to Plesiosauria by Otero et al. (2015); and to Plesiosauroidea by Brown (1981), Carroll (1988), Chatterjee and Small (1989), Bardet et al. (1991), Gasparini and Spalletti (1993), Cruickshank and Fordyce (2002), Gasparini et al. (2002), Araujo et al. (2008), Roberts et al. (2020) and Madzia et al. (2021).
It was synonymized subjectively with Plesiosauridae by Kuhn (1966).
It was assigned to Plesiosauria by Kuhn (1946); to Plesiosauria by White (1940) and Carpenter (1999); to Cryptocleidoidea by O'Keefe (2001); to Cryptoclidia by Ketchum and Benson (2010), Ketchum and Benson (2011) and Benson and Druckenmiller (2014); to Plesiosauria by Otero et al. (2015); and to Plesiosauroidea by Brown (1981), Carroll (1988), Chatterjee and Small (1989), Bardet et al. (1991), Gasparini and Spalletti (1993), Cruickshank and Fordyce (2002), Gasparini et al. (2002), Araujo et al. (2008), Roberts et al. (2020) and Madzia et al. (2021).
Synonyms
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Synonymy list
| Year | Name and author |
|---|---|
| 1925 | Cryptoclididae Williston |
| 1932 | Cryptoclidus aldingeri von Huene |
| 1940 | Cryptoclididae White p. 461 |
| 1946 | Cryptoclididae Kuhn p. 59 |
| 1981 | Cryptoclididae Brown p. 340 |
| 1988 | Cryptoclididae Carroll |
| 1989 | Cryptoclididae Chatterjee and Small p. 199 |
| 1991 | Cryptoclididae Bardet et al. p. 1346 |
| 1993 | Cryptoclididae Gasparini and Spalletti p. 252 |
| 1999 | Cryptoclididae Carpenter p. 168 fig. 15 |
| 2001 | Cryptoclididae O'Keefe p. 19 fig. 20 |
| 2002 | Cryptoclididae Cruickshank and Fordyce pp. 562-563 |
| 2002 | Cryptoclididae Gasparini et al. |
| 2008 | Cryptoclididae Araujo et al. p. 24 |
| 2010 | Cryptoclididae Ketchum and Benson p. 15 fig. 6 |
| 2011 | Cryptoclididae Ketchum and Benson p. 126 |
| 2014 | Cryptoclididae Benson and Druckenmiller figs. 2-3 |
| 2015 | Cryptoclididae Otero et al. p. 174 |
| 2020 | Cryptoclididae Roberts et al. |
| 2021 | Cryptoclididae Madzia et al. |
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If no rank is listed, the taxon is considered an unranked clade in modern classifications. Ranks may be repeated or presented in the wrong order because authors working on different parts of the classification may disagree about how to rank taxa.
Fm. †Cryptoclididae Williston 1925
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G. †Colymbosaurus Seeley 1874
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†Colymbosaurus sclerodirus Bogolubov 1911
†Colymbosaurus svalbardensis Persson 1962
†Colymbosaurus trochanterius Owen 1840
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Invalid names: Colymbosaurus megadeirus Seeley 1869 [synonym], Plesiosaurus manselii Hulke 1870 [synonym], Pliosaurus portlandicus Owen 1869 [synonym]
G. †Cryptoclidus Seeley 1892
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†Cryptocleidus cuervoi quesadai Torre and Rojas 1949
†Cryptoclidus eurymerus Phillips 1871
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Invalid names: Apractocleidus teretipes Smellie 1915 [synonym], Cryptoclidus platymerus Seeley 1892 [synonym], Plesiosaurus durobrivensis Seeley 1892 [synonym]
†Cryptoclidus richardsoni Lydekker 1889
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Invalid names: Plesiosaurus plicatus Mansel-Pleydell 1888 [synonym]
Invalid names: Apractocleidus Smellie 1915 [objective synonym], Cryptocleidus cuervoi Torre and Rojas 1949 [nomen dubium], Cryptoclidus vignalensis Torre and Cuervo 1939 [nomen dubium], Plesiosaurus oxfordiensis Seeley 1869 [nomen nudum], Plesiosaurus oxoniensis Phillips 1871 [nomen dubium]
G. †Muraenosaurus Seeley 1874
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†Muraenosaurus elasmosauroides Bogolubov 1911
†Muraenosaurus fahrenkohli Waldheim 1846
†Muraenosaurus leedsii Seeley 1874
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Invalid names: Cimoliosaurus plicatus Phillips 1871 [synonym], Muraenosaurus platyclis Seeley 1892 [synonym], Muraenosaurus plicatus Phillips 1871 [synonym], Tremamesacleis durobrivensis Lydekker 1889 [synonym]
†Muraenosaurus purbecki Bogolubov 1911
Invalid names: Tremamesacleis White 1940 [synonym]
G. †Spitrasaurus Knutsen et al. 2012
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†Spitrasaurus larseni Knutsen et al. 2012
†Spitrasaurus wensaasi Knutsen et al. 2012
Invalid names: Cryptoclidus aldingeri von Huene 1932 [nomen dubium]
Diagnosis
| Reference | Diagnosis | |
|---|---|---|
| T. E. White 1940 | "Brachycephalic; 29 to 40 cervical vertebrae, 22 to 26 dorsals, 3 to 4 sacrals, 30 ? caudals; cervical ribs single-headed; posterolateral angles of coracoids produced; interclavicle absent or reduced to a slender splint of bone; clavicles meeting in midline; scapula and coracoid meeting medial to scapulo-coracoid fenestra and forming a narrow bar between the two fenestrae." | |
| D. S. Brown 1981 | Plesiosauroidea with from 6 to 15 pairs of premaxillary teeth; toothrows regular, teeth decreasing in size distally without any enlargement of special teeth; lower teeth primitively 24 pairs, increasing in number to 58 pairs in advanced forms; tooth ornament reduced or absent; occipital condyle formed by the basioccipital and exoccipitals and not ringed by a constricting groove; overall length probably does not exceed 8 m; number of cervical vertebrae remains 28 to 32; cervical centra remain of moderate relative length; cervical ribs single-headed; ventral rami of the scapulae relatively broad and meeting in the ventral midline; epipodials broader than long; the fifth metapodial has shifted proximally into the distal mesapodial row; hyperphalangy of up to 15 phalanges in the longest digit. | |
| F. R. O'Keefe 2001 | "Humerus longer than femur, occipital condyle short with no groove, cervical rib heads elongate." | |
| A. R. I. Cruickshank and R. E. Fordyce 2002 | "(modified after Brown 1994). Synapomorphies for Cryptoclididae include: more than five pairs of premaxillary teeth; upper tooth row becoming regular with teeth decreasing in size distally without any enlargement of special teeth or reduction round the maxillo-premaxillary suture; lower teeth increasing in number (17 pairs in Tricleidus to 58 in Aristonectes); tooth ornament reduced to absent; orbit relatively large; jugal with short contact with postorbital. Other characters of note include: small high skull, short rostrum, short jugal not extending anterior to orbit; overall size in range 3´5±6´5 m; cervical vertebra counts of about 30±42 (in Colymbosaurus) (but see discussion of Kaiwhekea below); cervical centra not elongated, modified amphicoelous; cervical ribs always single-headed; and ventral rami of scapulae relatively broad and meeting in the ventral midline in adults." |