During the Late Jurassic, important palaeogeographic events occurred in Eurasia, North America and Gondwana. Continental rift, subduction and orogeny produced different levels of marine inundation of terrestrial systems, with rising sea... more
During the Late Jurassic, important palaeogeographic events occurred in Eurasia, North America and Gondwana. Continental rift, subduction and orogeny produced different levels of marine inundation of terrestrial systems, with rising sea level. Shallow epicontinental seaways started to separate North America from Eurasia, Gondwana, and also between segments of Gondwana itself. Tethys, the east-west seaway, expanded and at times covered large parts of the continental interior of Eurasia. The aperture of new seaways such as the Greenland-Norwegian seaway and the Mezen-Pechora strait system in the northern hemisphere; the Hispanic Corridor, between North and South America; and the Trans-Erythrean seaway (or South Africa/Rocas Verdes seaway) in the southern hemisphere allowed for intermittent interchange of invertebrate and marine vertebrate faunas.
During the past five years, the ichthyosaur fossil record has provided a way to describe new species so as to complement diagnoses of species that for a long time had been either synonymised or considered invalid. These taxonomic studies allow us now to understand the paleo-distribution of the ichthyosaurs around the world better as the relationships between the realms of the northern-southern hemisphere and boreal regions. The present report is a generic-level analysis of the dispersal routes of ichthyosaurs during the Late Jurassic compared with one of its top predators, Pliosaurus, and the palaeogeographic significance of high-latitude species such as Arthropterygius spp., Undorosaurs spp., Cryopterygius spp, Janusaurus and non-ubiquitous ichthyosaurs.
During the past five years, the ichthyosaur fossil record has provided a way to describe new species so as to complement diagnoses of species that for a long time had been either synonymised or considered invalid. These taxonomic studies allow us now to understand the paleo-distribution of the ichthyosaurs around the world better as the relationships between the realms of the northern-southern hemisphere and boreal regions. The present report is a generic-level analysis of the dispersal routes of ichthyosaurs during the Late Jurassic compared with one of its top predators, Pliosaurus, and the palaeogeographic significance of high-latitude species such as Arthropterygius spp., Undorosaurs spp., Cryopterygius spp, Janusaurus and non-ubiquitous ichthyosaurs.
