Elasmosáuridos (Plesiosauria) del Cretácico Tardío del Norte de patagonia

GAPARINI, Z., SALGADO, L.

Revista Española de Paleontología

Sociedad Española de Paleontología

Lugar: Madrid, España; Año: 2000 vol. 15 p. 13 - 21

New plesiosaur material from the Late Cretaceous of northern Patagonia is described. Some characters (cervical lateral ridge, pelvic bar) suggests close afinities with the Elasmosauridae, a group of plesiosauroids whose Late Cretaceous derived members were cosmopolitan. The new specimens, found in Lago Pellegrini, Río Negro Province (late Campanian-early Maastrichtian), reveal that Trinacromerum lafquenianum Gasparini and Goñi, 1985, is not a valid taxon, and that the material does not belong to the Polycotylidae but to the Elasmosauridae. Some morphological and histological characters of the pelvic bones suggest that all these specimens are subadult. The outcrops correspond to an estuarine paleoenvironment at the northern of a wide Atlantic transgression that covered most of Patagonia.