Gengasaurus
Extinct genus of reptiles
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Gengasaurus is an extinct genus of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the Jurassic. The type and only species, Gengasaurus nicosiai, was named in 2017, after the locality of Genga, Marche.[1] It lived in Italy about 152 million years ago.[2]
| Gengasaurus Temporal range: Late Jurassic, | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | †Ichthyosauria |
| Family: | †Ophthalmosauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Ophthalmosaurinae |
| Genus: | †Gengasaurus Paparella et al., 2017 |
| Species: | †G. nicosiai |
| Binomial name | |
| †Gengasaurus nicosiai Paparella et al., 2017 | |
History
The near complete holotype was discovered in 1976 in the Late Jurassic (Tithonian) Calcari ad aptici e Saccocoma Formation at Camponocecchio and it was described in 1980[3] and 2000[4] as the "Genga ichthyosaur" before it was named and described in 2016[5][2] - this paper was eventually published in 2017.[1] The holotype is now housed at the Spaelaeo-Palaeontologic Museum in Genga.
Phylogeny
The following cladogram shows a possible phylogenetic position of Gengasaurus in Ophthalmosauridae according to the analysis performed by Zverkov and Jacobs (2020).[6]