Genus
Valid Extinct

Morenosaurus

Welles 1943

Morenosaurus is an extinct genus of plesiosaur from the Cretaceous of what is now California. The type species is Morenosaurus stocki, first named by Samuel Welles in 1943, in honor of Dr. Chester Stock. The species was found by Robert Wallace and Arthur Drescher in the Panoche Hills region of Fresno County. The skeleton they found was fairly complete, and lacked only the head and parts of the neck and paddles; the preserved portion of the trunk and tail is 3.63 metres (11.9 ft) long. The skeleton was originally mounted at Caltech but is now in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Temporal range
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Paleogene
Neogene
252 201 145 66 0 Ma
PBDB occurrences
2
Group
Sauroptérygiens
Carnivore aquatic, depth=surface Marine
Morenosaurus
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Skeletal cast mount (CIT 2802) of Morenosaurus stocki on display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. © Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia
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Classification
Sauropterygia Suborder
›
Plesiosauria Order
›
Plesiosauroidea Superfamily
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Elasmosauridae Family
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Weddellonectia Unranked clade
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Morenosaurus Genus
Fossil sites 2 geolocated sites
Distribution
Top countries
🇺🇸 United States
2
Geological formations
Moreno
2
Temporal distribution
Maastrichtian (72.2–66 Ma)
2
Species (1)
Morenosaurus stocki 72 Ma
Images 1
Bibliography
Original description
S. P. Welles. 1943. Elasmosaurid plesiosaurs with description of new material from California and Colorado. Memoirs of the University of California 13:125-254
Bibliography (2)
K. Workman Ford. 2006. Stratigraphic positions of marine reptile and dinosaur specimens in the Moreno Formation, in the Tumey Hills and Panoche Hills, Fresno County, California. Late Cretaceous Vertebrates from the Western Interior. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 35:407-410
S. P. Welles. 1943. Elasmosaurid plesiosaurs with description of new material from California and Colorado. Memoirs of the University of California 13:125-254