Henri Émile Sauvage (1898) described MG33 as belonging to an unknown species of Plesiosaurus.[2] Other authors, including Bardet et al. (2008)[3] and Ruiz−Omeñaca et al. (2009)[4] also classified MG33 within Plesiosaurus. Castanhinha and Mateus (2007)[5] and Smith & Vincent (2010)[6] instead classified the specimen as an indeterminate member of Plesiosauria.
The specimen was described and named by Adam S. Smith, Ricardo Araújo and Octávio Mateus in 2012 as Lusonectes sauvagei.[1]Lusonectes was described as the first diagnostic plesiosaur species discovered in Portugal to date.[1]
Description
It is based on a single autapomorphy, a broad triangular parasphenoid cultriform process that is as long as the posterior interpterygoid vacuities, and also on a unique character combination.[1]
Classification
Smith, Araújo and Mateus (2012) found Lusonectes to belong to the Plesiosauridae[1] when placed within a cladogram created by Ketchum and Benson (2010).[7]
^Sauvage, H.E. (1897–1898). Vertébrés fossiles du Portugal. Contribution à l’étude des poissons et des reptiles du Jurassique et du Crétacique. Memórias Commissão do Serviço Geológico de Portugal 1897–1898: 1–46.
^Ruiz−Omeñaca, J.I., Bardet, N., Piñuela, L., José Carlos García−Ramos, J.C., and Pereda−Suberbiola, X. (2009). El fósil de plesiosaurio (Sauro− pterygia) más antiguo de la Peninsula Ibérica: una vértebra procedente del Hettangiense−Sinemuriense de Asturias. Geogaceta 46: 79–82.
^Castanhinha, R. and Mateus, O. (2007). Short review on the marine reptiles of Portugal: ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27: 57A.
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