A thoroughgoing Triassic plesiosaur: Rhaeticosaurus

[Halichoeres]

I.e., not a pistosaur. The authors recover it as a basal pliosaur, suggesting that the origins of major plesiosaur lineages predates the Jurassic.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/12/e1701144.full

Open access!

[DinoToyForum]

I.e., not a pistosaur. The authors recover it as a basal pliosaur, suggesting that the origins of major plesiosaur lineages predates the Jurassic.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/12/e1701144.full

Open access!

Other plesiosaur remains are known from the Rhaetian, but this is the first substantially complete and diagnostic specimen. So, an important discovery! I haven't read the paper yet, but don't expect the basal pliosaur position to hold up to scrutiny.

[ZoPteryx]

Very cool find!

I haven't read the paper yet, but don't expect the basal pliosaur position to hold up to scrutiny.

That was my first thought as well.  I would imagine a pliosaur-like bauplan was ancestral to plesiosaurs.

[Halichoeres]

I.e., not a pistosaur. The authors recover it as a basal pliosaur, suggesting that the origins of major plesiosaur lineages predates the Jurassic.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/12/e1701144.full

Open access!

Other plesiosaur remains are known from the Rhaetian, but this is the first substantially complete and diagnostic specimen. So, an important discovery! I haven't read the paper yet, but don't expect the basal pliosaur position to hold up to scrutiny.

Thanks for the info/clarification!