Embaphias
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| Embaphias Temporal range: Late Cretaceous (Campanian), | |
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| Three vertebral centra belonging to Embaphias circulosus. | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | †Sauropterygia |
| Order: | †Plesiosauria |
| Family: | †incertae sedis |
| Genus: | †Embaphias Cope, 1894 |
| Type species | |
| †Embaphias circulosus Cope, 1894 | |
Embaphias is a dubious[1] genus of plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America. It was named by Edward Drinker Cope on the basis of three cervical vertebrae. The type species is E. circulosus.[2]
In 1893, John H. Charles, a man from Sioux City, collected three incomplete plesiosaur vertebrae from strata of the Pierre Formation in Great Bend of the Missouri River, South Dakota.[3] In 1894, American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope described these vertebrae as coming from a new genus and species of plesiosaur, Embaphias circulosus. The generic name Embaphias derives from the Greek word embaphion, "saucer", and -ias , a suffix for Greek words. The specific name comes from the Latin word circulus, "circle" or "ring". Cope identified one of these vertebrae as a cervical (neck) vertebra and the other two as being dorsal (back) vertebrae.[2][3]
