Apatomerus
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, Albian
| |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Superorder: | †Sauropterygia |
Order: | †Plesiosauria (?) |
Genus: | †Apatomerus Williston, 1903 |
Type species | |
†Apatomerus mirus Williston, 1903 |
Apatomerus (meaning "deceptive femur"), is a genusofextinct reptile known from a single fossil (KUVP 1199) from the Albian-age (Lower Cretaceous) Kiowa ShaleofKansas, USA. This bone, collected in 1893, was first identified as the thighbone of a crocodilian, but was described in 1903 by Samuel Wendell Williston as belonging to a pterosaur.[1] This identification held through the 1970s,[2] but has been abandoned. Recent summaries of pterosaur genera, such as Wellnhofer, 1991[3] and Glut, 2004[4] did not include it, and Mike Everhart, an authority on the rocks of the Western Interior Seaway (including the Kiowa Shale) identifies the bone as more likely the upper part of a plesiosaurian propodial (a limb bone).[5][6]
Apatomerus |
|
---|
This article about a plesiosaur is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This article about a Cretaceous reptile is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |