Leptonectidae
Extinct family of reptiles
Leptonectidae is a family of ichthyosaurs known from Late Triassic to Early Jurassic marine deposits in Europe. They were all small to medium-sized creatures, most noted for their very long, swordfish-like snouts, which could have been used like a weapon, slashing through schools of fish.
01Classification
In their 2025 description of Xiphodracon, Lomax and colleagues recovered this taxon as the sister taxon to the genus Hauffiopteryx within the broader ichthyosaurian clade Neoichthyosauria. Based on this close relationship, they named the new clade Hauffiopterygia to house both genera. Using extended implied weights parsimony, the Hauffiopterygia was recovered within the family Leptonectidae, which comprises the genera Eurhinosaurus, Excalibosaurus, Leptonectes, and Wahlisaurus. Using equal weights parsimony, the Hauffiopterygia was instead recovered in a position diverging immediately after the Leptonectidae. The results of the former analysis, which are preferred by the researchers, are displayed in the cladogram below:
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Leptonectidae”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Leptonectes tenuirostris, Lyme Regis, England, Early Jurassic - Royal Ontario Museum - DSC09972.JPG by Daderot, CC0
- Hauffiopteryx SW 1.png by Slate Weasel, CC BY 4.0
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