Ogmodirus
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 94.3–89.3 Ma
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Paddle bone of KUVP 441
Cervical series of KUVP 441
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Sauropsida
Order:
†Plesiosauria
Suborder:
†Plesiosauroidea
Family:
†Elasmosauridae?
Genus:
†Ogmodirus

Williston and Moodie, 1913
Binomial name
†Ogmodirus martini
Williston & Moodie, 1913
Synonyms
  • Ogmodirus martinii Moodie, 1916

Ogmodirus is an extinct genus of plesiosaur found in the Cenomanian-Turonian (Late Cretaceous) Greenhorn Limestone of Kansas.[1][2] The type species, O. martini, was named by Samuel Wendell Williston and Roy Lee Moodie in 1913.[2]

Discovery and naming

The holotype, KUVP 441, consists of a pelvic girdle, limb elements, and more than fifty cervical (neck) vertebrae from a juvenile discovered in Cloud County, Kansas by C. Boyce in 1909.[2] KUVP 441 was named as Ogmodirus martini by Williston & Moodie (1913)[2] and the species name was amended to martinii by Moodie (1916), but the original name takes precedence.[3] The holotype was described in detail by Williston & Moodie (1917).[3]

A second species, Ogmodirus ischiadicus (based on specimen KUVP 434), was initially placed within its own genus, Thalassiosaurus,[3] and has since been referred to Styxosaurus.[4] It was placed in Ogmodirus by Willison & Moodie (1917).[3]

Classification

According to Welles (1962),[5] Ogmodirus martini may be member of the Elasmosauridae, a group of marine animals related to Elasmosaurus, but the condition of the fossils discovered to date means the genus is dubious beyond Plesiosauria. Sepkoski (2002) assigned Ogmodirus to the Plesiosauria.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Ogmodirus martini from Oceans of Kansas
  2. ^ a b c d Williston, S. W. and Moodie, R. L. (1913). New plesiosaurian genus from the Cretaceous of Nebraska. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 24: 120-121.
  3. ^ a b c d S. W. Williston and R. L. Moodie. (1917). Ogmodirus martinii, a new plesiosaur from the Cretaceous of Wyoming. The University of Kansas Science Bulletin 10(2):61-73
  4. ^ S. W. Williston. (1903). North American plesiosaurs, part 1. Geological Series Field Museum of Natural History 3(1):1-77
  5. ^ S. P. Welles. (1962). A new species of elasmosaur from the Aptian of Colombia and a review of the Cretaceous plesiosaurs. University of California Publications in Geological Sciences 44(1):1-96
  6. ^ Sepkoski, J.J. (2002). A compendium of fossil marine animal genera. Bulletins of American Paleontology 363:1-560.
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