Simosaurus
Simosaurus was a marine reptile that swam in warm, shallow seas during the Middle Triassic, about 240 to 230 million years ago. It had a blunt, flattened head and blunt teeth for crushing hard-shelled prey like clams and ammonites.1
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Fun facts
Simosaurus had large openings behind its eyes called upper temporal fossae, which were bigger than its eye sockets.1
Its jaw joint was set far back, projecting beyond the main part of the skull, giving it a unique bite.1
Simosaurus had a flattened trunk that prevented side-to-side swimming, unlike most other nothosaurs.1
It swam using powerful downstrokes of its forelimbs, but its upstroke was weak, making it a moderately strong swimmer.1
The first Simosaurus fossils were found in Lunéville, France, and described by German paleontologist Hermann von Meyer in 1842.1
Simosaurus is known from the Muschelkalk deposits in Germany, where it appears in layers marked by the ammonite Ceratites nodosus.1
Most asked questions about Simosaurus
?How big was Simosaurus?
Simosaurus grew from 3 to 4 metres (9.8 to 13.1 ft) in length.1
?What did Simosaurus eat?
It ate hard-shelled organisms like ammonites and holostean fish, using its blunt teeth to crush them.1
?How did Simosaurus swim?
It swam with powerful downstrokes of its forelimbs, but its upstroke was weak, making it a moderately strong swimmer.1
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Simosaurus
- Named by
- Meyer 18423
- Group
- Sea reptiles
- Family / clade
- Simosauridae3
- Classification
- Nothosauria > Sauropterygia3
- Age of the rocks
- 247 to 201 million years ()3
- Rock formations
- Jilh, Erfurt, Gevanim3
- Countries
- Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy3
- Fossil records
- 15 in the Paleobiology Database3
- Discovery
- German paleontologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer named Simosaurus in 1842 based on a skull from Lunéville, France. That original skull has since been lost.1
- Still debated
- Scientists debate whether Simosaurus was a nothosaur, a pachypleurosaur, or a more primitive sauropterygian.1
Where the facts come from
- Simosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
- Bone histology, microanatomy, and growth of the nothosauroid Simosaurus gaillardoti (Sauropterygia) from the Upper Muschelkalk of southern Germany/Baden-Württemberg - Scientific Publications of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris (sciencepress.mnhn.fr)
- Simosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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