Simoedosaurus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Simoedosaurus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Fossil | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | †Choristodera |
| Suborder: | †Neochoristodera |
| Genus: | †Simoedosaurus Gervais, 1877 |
| Type species | |
| †Simoedosaurus lemoinei Gervais, 1877 | |
Simoedosaurus is an extinct reptile known from the Paleocene of North America, Europe and western Asia,[1] and a member of the Choristodera, a group of aquatic reptiles that lived in the Northern Hemisphere from the Jurassic to the early Cenozoic.
A second species, S. dakotensis got its own genus, Kosmodraco, in 2022.[2]
French paleontologist Paul Gervais described Simoedosaurus in 1877.
Though similar to and contemporaneous, Simoedosaurus is not closely related to the North American Champsosaurus, instead it appears to be most closely related to Tchoiria and Ikechosaurus from the Early Cretaceous of Asia. It therefore may represent a species that immigrated into North America from Asia in the wake of the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction event, though the absence of choristoderes in the Late Cretaceous of Asia makes this merely a paleogeographical speculation.[3]
