Unranked clade
Valid Extinct

Hauffiopterygia

Lomax et al. 2025

Leptonectidae is a family of ichthyosaurs known from Late Triassic to Early Jurassic marine deposits in Europe. They were all small to medium-sized creatures, most noted for their very long, swordfish-like snouts, which could have been used like a weapon, slashing through schools of fish.

Temporal range
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Paleogene
Neogene
252 201 145 66 0 Ma
PBDB occurrences
1
Group
Ichtyosaures
Carnivore nektonic Marine
Hauffiopterygia
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Wikimedia
PBDB Wikipedia
Classification
Ichthyosauria Unranked clade
Parvipelvia Unranked clade
Neoichthyosauria Unranked clade
Leptonectidae Family
Hauffiopterygia Unranked clade
Fossil sites 1 geolocated sites
Distribution
Top countries
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
1
Geological formations
Charmouth Mudstone
1
Temporal distribution
Pliensbachian (192.9–184.2 Ma)
1
Images 2
Bibliography
Original description
D. R. Lomax, J. A. Massare, and E. E. Maxwell. 2025. A new long and narrow‐snouted ichthyosaur illuminates a complex faunal turnover during an undersampled Early Jurassic (Pliensbachian) interval. Papers in Palaeontology 11(5):e70038 DOI ↗
Bibliography (1)
D. R. Lomax, J. A. Massare, and E. E. Maxwell. 2025. A new long and narrow‐snouted ichthyosaur illuminates a complex faunal turnover during an undersampled Early Jurassic (Pliensbachian) interval. Papers in Palaeontology 11(5):e70038 DOI ↗