Name: Thililua
(after an aquatic god from Berber mythology).
Phonetic: Fil-e-lu-ah.
Named By: Nathalie Bardet, Xabier Pereda
Suberbiola & Nour-Eddine Jalil - 2003.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria, Plesiosauroidea.
Species: T. longicollis
(type).
Diet: Piscivore.
Size: Estimated between 5.5 and 6 meters
long.
Known locations: Morocco - High Atlas Mountains.
Time period: Turonian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Complete skull, lower jaws
and 37 cervical (neck) vertebrae.
Although
the
body is still unknown, Thililua is considered to
be a polycotylid
plesiosaur.
Named after the genus Polycotylus,
polycotylids had
plesiosaur shaped bodies, but proportionately shorter necks and
longer jaws, with probably the most famous example of this group
being Dolichorhynchops.
Although most polycotylid fossils are known
from North America, the presence of Thililua in
Morocco helps to
establish the picture of polycotylid plesiosaurs being successful
enough to colonise most of the ocean.
But
with thirty seven
cervical vertebrae Thililua had more than most
other polycotylid
genera. This suggests that Thililua was more
primitive in form and
may have actually been a closely related offshoot descended from the
ancestors of the polycotylids.
Further reading
- A new polycotylid plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Turonian) of
Morocco. - Comptes Rendus Palevol 2:307-315. - N. Bardet, X. Pereda
Suberbiola & N.-E. Jalil - 2003.