Liopleurodon

Liopleurodon ferox · Liopleurodon was a large, carnivorous marine reptile (a pliosaurid plesiosaur) that swam in Europe's seas during the Jurassic period, with fossils found mainly in Europe.

It lived about 166 to 155 million years ago.

Liopleurodon
Photo: LakePaleoArt2025, CC BY 4.0
Liopleurodon
Photo: René Hourdry, CC0
Liopleurodon
Photo: NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 3.0

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassReptilia
OrderPlesiosauria
FamilyPliosauridae
GenusLiopleurodon
SpeciesLiopleurodon ferox

Where its fossils were found

Europe (England, France, Germany, Russia); one reported find in Mexico.

Fun facts

  • The TV show Walking with Dinosaurs showed Liopleurodon at 25 metres long, but real specimens suggest it reached only about 2.46 to 8.09 metres.
  • Liopleurodon had a huge head: its skull made up nearly a quarter of its whole body length.
  • Liopleurodon could probably scan the water with its nostrils to work out where certain smells were coming from.
  • The famous giant Liopleurodon vertebra from Peterborough was re-identified in a 2019 study as actually coming from a sauropod dinosaur.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).