| Cimoliasaurus | |
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| Cimoliasaurus magnus vertebrae. | |
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| Genus: | †Cimoliasaurus Leidy, 1851 |
| Type species | |
| †Cimoliasaurus magnus Leidy, 1851 | |
Cimoliasaurus was aplesiosaur that lived during theLate Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of the eastern United States, with fossils known fromNew Jersey,North Carolina, andMaryland.
The name is derived from theGreekΚιμωλίαkimolia, meaning "white chalk", andσαύροςsauros, meaning "lizard", in reference to the fact that the deposits in which it was found bear a superficial resemblance to the chalk deposits of the Western Interior Seaway.
The nameCimoliasaurus magnus was coined byJoseph Leidy forANSP 9235, one anterior and 12 posteriorcervical vertebrae collected in Maastrichtian-agedgreensand deposits of theNew Egypt andNavesink Formations inBurlington County,New Jersey.[1] A specimen is also known from coevallimestone deposits of thePeedee Formation inPender County, North Carolina.[2] There is also a tentative record from the Maastrichtian-agedSevern Formation inMaryland when in 1988, Colin McEwen discovered a vertebra of a Cimoliasaurus during a school field trip. The discovery is recorded in the National Geographic November 1988 issue.[3]
In his catalogue ofplesiosaur andichthyosaur specimens preserved in theNHM, the British zoologistRichard Lydekker referred several Jurassic and Cretaceous plesiosaur species toCimoliasaurus, including the new speciesC. richardsoni (now considered a species ofCryptoclidus) andC. cantabrigiensis, as well asColymbosaurus and a number of previously described species from theCambridge Greensand andChalk Group.[4]
Nowadays,Cimoliasaurus is now recognized as being a derivedelasmosaurid, effectively making the family name CimoliasauridaeDelair, 1959 a junior synonym of Elasmosauridae.[5]
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