Undetermined undetermined

O’Gorman, José Patricio & Otero, Rodrigo A., 2023, Revision of the short-necked Cretaceous plesiosaurians from New Zealand, Comptes Rendus Palevol 22 (6), pp. 77-90 : 79

cf. Polycotylidae

( Fig. 2 I-L)

Polycotylus tenuis – Hector 1874: 335, pl. 27.

Polycotylidae indet. Welles & Gregg 1971: 44.

MATERIAL. — DM R1548 , a juvenile, indeterminate propodium .

LOCALITY AND HORIZON. — No information, but almost certainly from New Zealand ( Welles & Gregg 1971; Fig. 1).

REMARKS

Based on its gracility, DM R1548 probably belongs to a polycotylid. It must be noted that the coeval plesiosaur record from New Zealand includes a very unusual, still indeterminate elasmosaurid (CMZfr 159) that possesses a distinctively elongate propodial ( Hiller et al. 2014: fig. 7), although not so slender as the DM R1548. Similar unusually elongate propodials are known from the late Aptian of Australia, and have also been compared with polycotylids (see Kear 2005: fig. 3A, B). Based on these possibilities, we refer it, with doubts, to cf. Polycotylidae .